Blackout Zone
by Loki's Campaign Manager
Summary: "There are two things I'd fight to the death for. My sister and my home, in that order." -Dr. Simon Tam. A prequel, chronicling Serenity's early travels in the 'verse and Simon's search for and rescue of River. Includes perspectives of all the crew and the special hells they put themselves through. Much Zoe/Wash, for they are wonderful, notes on other pairings within.
1. Simon - Code

**Notes:**

In the timeline of the 'verse I'm using, River went to the Academy early in the year 2515. The events of the series begin in the year 2517.

This story is not a romance, though it does contain a great deal of Zoe/Wash. In the interest of full disclosure: I do occasionally hint at some Kaylee/Inara and some Mal/Simon, but it is in no way rampant, especially as this is decidedly pre-canon.

And finally: I do not own the genius that is Firefly; that honor goes to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Translations: **Are below.

_Jian tal de gui_ - Like hell

_Kewu de lao baojun -_ Horrible old tyrant

_Dang ran_ - Of course

_Zhen de shi tiancai - _An absolute genius

**Chapter 1: Simon **—** Code**

**Osiris in the year 2515**

All the allegiance propaganda taught in Simon Tam's pro-Alliance school was, in his opinion, redundant. No one with a sister like River needed a lesson in loyalty. Eliminating his social awkwardness would have been much more helpful.

"Excuse me, I didn't catch your—I was wondering if you could, ah—"

The MedAcad student who was the object of Simon's inquiry glanced at him with the same mild surprise he might have used had a snail crossed his path. "Were you talking to me?"

"Yes. Yes, I was. Dr. Robina Mahdavi—she still teaches here, doesn't she? Her room is locked and dark, but this is office hours and I thought—" Simon ordered himself to shut up, and did.

The student threw his friend a look and laughed. "Mahdavi? Seriously? You want to spend more time talking to the Devil than you have to for classes?"

Simon decided not to point out that he didn't attend MedAcad anymore. If Dr. Mahdavi had retained her former nickname, he was in for enough trouble as it was. "If you could just—"

"Oh, sure. They moved her office. It's just down the hall. I'd come back later, though, if I were you. She's in a mood."

"Yes, thank you," Simon replied distractedly, already hurrying towards the door which he could see, upon closer inquiry, bore the name of his former epidemiology professor. Knowing from experience that he would merely be sent away if he knocked, Simon pushed the door open directly.

A drinking cup bounced off his forehead and clattered to the ground. "Get lost, Zhou! I already told you, I'm not going to parade my research for the whims of your trustees." Were it not for the voice, no one would have been able to detect the presence of a human being in the room—it was completely jammed with heavy books, row upon row of bottles, and the latest technology. All was covered but the lab counters; these were scrupulously clean.

"Dr. Mahdavi? It's Simon Tam."

"Oh, really?" A face, framed by brown hair and almost entirely obscured behind a pair of lab goggles, appeared from behind one of the diagnostic machines. "So the Feds let you go after that incident with the statue of Hippocrates, did they?"

"That was over eight months ago."

"Ah, of course. I did hear the AMI thought you were good enough to employ. It's nice some people have sense." Simon smiled despite himself. Compliments from Mahdavi, even obscure ones, were few and far between. "Forgive the cup. That fool Zhou seems to think he runs this academy."

"He does run this academy."

_"__Jian tal de gui_he does. If that man fell in a hole he'd spend his time writing articles on how the rest of us should pull him out of it. You know I hate social visits."

Simon swallowed. It was more difficult than he'd anticipated to share his 'conspiracy theories,' as many no doubt would term them, with another person. River's well-being was too important for him to take mockery over it lightly. "I think I spoke to you once or twice about my sister?"

"Once or twice? You've gotten your understatement down to an art, you have." Mahdavi grabbed a Cortex viewer off a high shelf and began tapping the screen. "Last time I checked, you worshiped the ground she walked on. Jiangyin, I want the set from Jiangyin, where are those stats?"

"She's been sending me coded letters."

Mahdavi didn't look up. "Is that unusual?"

"Yes."

"And what do they say, these coded letters?"

"I don't know. But I was hoping you could help me figure it out."

"Look, whatever game you're playing with—River, isn't it? If it's bothering you enough that you drag yourself in to see a _kewu de lao baojun_ such as myself, you should really be talking to her about it."

"I can't. I haven't seen her in more than six months."

Mahdavi paused in her scrolling. "What? Why?"

"She's been at school. Or at least that's what we think. What we were told." Simon bit the inside of his mouth, cursing himself for not making more inquiries into the Academy while River was still with them. "It was supposed to be a government program. The best one. But she never comes home. We aren't supposed to wave her. It makes the separation easier, they say. All we get are these letters and they don't make any sense. They don't even sound like her."

"But you visited, didn't you?" Mahdavi tossed the viewer into a nearby garden pot and propped up her glasses. "Talked to other families who were sending their children there? Any of them have this problem?"

"We didn't visit," Simon snapped. "They didn't offer, and, because it seems we're idiots, we didn't insist. I did some research after the fact and there's nothing on the Cortex. Nothing. I dug through the Alliance official site for five hours."

"Did you bring the letters?"

_"__Dang ran.__" _Simon handed her the folder with River's printed-out messages.

Mahdavi accepted it and flipped through the pages. "I'm guessing it isn't a habit of your sister's to misspell words?"

"Not at all. I don't remember the last time anyone managed to prove River wrong...about anything."

"Huh. Isn't there some Earth-That-Was legend about how being too smart makes the demons jealous?" Mahdavi narrowed her eyes. "Who are the D'arbanvilles again? The family that made a fortune off those fake embalming materials from Sihnon?"

Simon blinked. "Fake embalming materials?"

"Yes. Faux myrrh."

"I think you mean _fur." _

"Sure I do," Mahdavi said absently. "What happened at their ball?"

"The D'arbanvilles don't exist. At least, our family doesn't know them, if they do."

"Simon." Mahdavi peered at him seriously. "If that's the case, you ever think you might not _want _to hear what your sister's trying to tell you?"

Simon blinked. "No. Why wouldn't I?"

His former professor sighed. "You know what? Never mind. I'm most likely imagining Reavers where there're monkeys with leprosy." The epidemiologist tossed the folder back to Simon, plucked a pen out from the nearest chipped beaker, and handed it to him. "I have an hour or so. Circle any unfamiliar proper nouns. On all the letters. Then we'll get to work."

**OoOoO**

"All I want to know is if you're alright. Nothing more."

Simon looked at his mother's face in the wave screen. "I am fine. Never been better."

Regan Tam sighed. "Simon, your father and I, we know you're committed to your position. But you aren't a bad doctor if you take some time off once in a while."

"What makes you think I'm not?"

"Dr. Stuart says he has to order you not to come in for longer than your contract covers."

"So?"

"Your contract covers up to sixty hours a week." Simon's mother creased her brow. "And he said you work on wood carvings over your lunch hours."

Simon bristled. "I'm allowed to—"

"You know your father thought it might be compulsive."

"Dad is wrong. My carving is a hobby. It helps me cope when patients don't make it."

"And Aidan and Joanna say you go straight home afterwards, never join them for drinks or socialize like you used to—"

"I'm tired after work, not cutting myself off from the world. I went to visit Dr. Robina Mahdavi today."

Regan smiled a little. "Your old professor? That's nice. How is she?"

"She hasn't changed." Simon paused. "I brought her the letters River sent us. To see if—"

"Oh, Simon, you said you'd stop it with that nonsense."

"All I want to do is be sure." The doctor took a breath. "Look, if there's a code, Dr. Mahdavi will find it. If she doesn't, we'll know there's nothing to worry about. I'm getting a second opinion. Being realistic, as you want me to."

"This is insane." Regan shook her head. "Maybe you needed to say something to us. We're your parents. We're River's parents. But you cannot bring a stranger—"

"She's not a—"

"—into our private business like this."

"I left her copies of River's letters, not our banking statements!"

"I'm worried about you, Simon! Six months ago you would never have—"

"Six months ago I didn't have to worry that I'd never see my sister again!"

Simon knew he'd gone too far as his mother's face went tight. "If I thought we would never see River again," she said coldly, "I'd move heaven and earth to get her back. It is not fair of you to imply I love her less than you do, Simon."

"I'm sorry." Simon gripped the rim of his desk. "I just—I'm scared for her."

"But that's what we're trying to tell you. There is _no reason _to be scared. And when you see River next, I'm sure she'll tell you that herself."

**OoOoO**

"Your sister is _zhen de shi tiancai__." _Mahdavi ruffled the edges of River's stacked letters. "I would never have found this code if I hadn't been looking for it."

Simon pressed his palms hard against the professor's immaculate counter. "So there is a code."

"Oh, yes." Mahdavi bit her lip thoughtfully. "But..."

"What?"

The epidemiologist set the letters aside and leaned forward on her elbows. "Listen, Simon. You're a law-abiding citizen."

Simon frowned. "Yes..."

"You've got a good position in society. A job you love. You're able to walk down the street without the fear of being dragged off to jail or some psychiatric institute, or getting shot."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm asking you how much you want to keep all that. Because if you care about being safe more than you care about your sister, I might as well not have cracked this code at all."

Simon held out a hand. "Let me see it. Now."

Wordlessly, Mahdavi handed over the letters. The original writing was barely visible under a swarm of scribbling, but the deciphered code, scrawled in red pencil, was clear enough: the same words, over and over again.

_They're hurting us. Get me out. They're hurting us. Get me out. They're hurting us. Get me out..._

**To be continued. Reviews are helpful and encouraging!**


	2. Zoe - UDay

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Translations: **Are below.

_Go-se: _Crap

_Xi-niu: _Cow-sucking

_Qing-wa cao de liu mang: _Frog-humping son of a bitch

_Ta ma de! Nimen de bizui!: _Everybody shut the hell up!

_Lao tian ye: _Jesus

_Baobei: _Sweetheart

**Chapter 2: Zoe **—** UDay**

**Unification Day, the year 2515**

"Next time, sir, I'm staying on the ship to play at dinosaurs with my husband."

Zoe Washburne's former sergeant quirked an eyebrow at her. "After all we've been through, knowing you don't enjoy my charming conversation—that hurts me, Zoe. Wounds me to the heart."

"To speak plainly, sir, most of your conversation tonight's been with your glass. And if you keep drinking and not eating, you'll most likely give _yourself_ a broken nose when the brawling starts."

"And what makes you think that, if there be any brawling tonight, I'll be wanting in on it? Most folk here seem to be in the mood for celebrating."

Zoe glanced around the bar, crammed to the bursting with trigger-happy Alliance supporters passing their third bottles down the narrow counters, and put on her most innocent expression. "I don't know, sir. Can't help but wonder, though, why we're here, when the Dyton Outlaw is two streets over and a good bit cheaper too."

Mal took another gulp of his drink and scanned the room, where a man in a worn blue shirt was just tumbling off his stool, and a woman in the corner was raising her glass in her fourth toast of the evening. "Better food."

"True enough." Zoe took another bite, savoring the first non-protein meal she'd had in several weeks. "Order some, why don't you?"

"I'll eat when we're back on Serenity."

"We could always head back now." Zoe set down her chopsticks. "I'm near done here."

"Want to finish this drink." The former corporal sighed, and waved down the bartender.

"What can I do for you?"

"Mind getting me a box for the rest of this?"

"Not a problem." The woman plucked a container off a shelf behind her head and tossed it down the counter.

"Thanks." Zoe began putting part of what was left of her meal in a box for Wash. He'd always had a thing for fresh _bao, _and hadn't been dirt-side since their last job.

A loud crash sounded from their right, as the man in the blue shirt kicked the offending stool out of his way, and lurched across the room to where the piano player was valiantly trying to make her music heard above the drunken cacophony. "Enough of that _go-se__! _Let's hear the National Anthem!"

The piano player struck up the requested song, and the majority of the bar promptly began singing along, with great variation in both skill and key. Zoe resisted the urge to smack someone with her empty plate, and watched, now resigned, as Mal began to pointedly hum a dirty drinking song she was fairly sure he'd picked up from Badger.

Halfway through the third verse, an enormous man with long red hair tied in a ponytail broke off his song and strode up to Mal. "Think you're too good for us, don't you? I ain't seen you toast the Alliance tonight."

"Oversight." Mal raised his glass with a flourish. "To the great Alliance, for their special gift of nothing to poor working folk like ourselves." Half of those in earshot yelped in indignation; the other half apparently being drunk enough to take Mal's toast as a genuine compliment to their government.

The red-haired man bristled. "You makin' fun of me?"

"No, no, my friend. I expect that happens to you far too much as it is." Mal patted the man on the shoulder. "But I ain't finished yet. To the great Alliance, for every fine I've ever paid, for every checkpoint I've ever gotten stuck behind, for—"

"Is he being sarcastic?" a woman to their left asked. Zoe ignored her and glanced around the bar, taking in the odds. It wasn't as bad as it could have been—a healthy percentage of the crowd was watching the blue-shirted man attempt to climb the piano—but it was still far from good.

_"__Xi-niu_ Independents!" A slight man in a black coat charged at Mal, who merely stepped out of the way and let him run into the counter.

Mal smiled brightly at Zoe before ducking under the red-haired man's punch to knee him in the groin. Zoe grabbed an empty nearby bench and used it to ward off a man and woman who were descending on her with raised fists. Moving to be back to back with Mal, who was brandishing an empty bottle plucked from the abundance on the counter, she swung the bench in a wide circle, clubbing the woman in the stomach. Her victim fell back, gasping, and the man moved in with a shout of rage. Zoe caught several punches on her makeshift shield with ease, but began to rethink the situation when she saw the glint of metal.

_"__Qing-wa cao de liu mang__!" _Mal staggered against Zoe's back, but, with her attacker bearing down with a blade as long as his forearm, she had no time to see how badly he'd been hit. Ducking at the last moment, she caught the knife in the bars of the bench and jerked it from his hands. She pulled the blade free just as the man in the black coat jumped from the counter onto her back. Zoe bashed him in the nose with the handle of the knife before rolling away and scanning the crowd for Mal.

He was limping, she noticed immediately, but several of the bar fighters looked worse. Zoe entertained a brief hope that they might get out of this relatively unscathed, until she heard the snap of a gun cocking.

"Duck!" She tackled her captain just as the gun went off. Unfortunately, they hit a nearby table and crashed to the ground amid a shower of broken bottles and spilled drinks.

"Evan! Put that away, right now!" Zoe rolled over to see the bartender shouting at the gun's holder, a short man with a braid of black hair. "You want to give the mayor one more excuse to shut this place down?"

"Murderers! Browncoat scum!" the man screamed, sending an array of bullets at Mal. Luckily, the table took most of them, but Zoe felt Mal jerk against her as one grazed his cheek. "You killed them! They're all dead!"

The bartender jerked the gun from the black-haired man's hand. _"__Ta ma de! Nimen de bizui!"_The crowd nearest her quieted somewhat, but Zoe doubted it would last long. "You two. Out. And the rest of you, don't be following if you want to set foot in this bar again!" Most of the men and women grumbled assent as Zoe hauled Mal's arm around her shoulders and dragged him out the door.

Mal winked at his first mate. "Well, that was fun."

"Sir?"

"Corporal?"

"You're drunk."

**OoOoO**

"Gorram drunkard's got a kick like a mule," Mal muttered as he limped into the cargo bay, leaning on Zoe. "I ain't gonna be walking straight for a week."

"Hmm. Suppose it's too much to ask you to stay off it." Zoe deposited Mal on the weight bench and went to the com on the wall. "Wash, we're back."

"I trust you're safe and sound and not missing more than two limbs each?" came her husband's cheerful voice through the com.

"Affirmative. Where's Kaylee?"

"Here!" The mechanic hopped down the stairs. "You're hurt! How'd it happen?"

"Just a tussle with some folk as hold the Alliance in a higher regard than they deserve."

"Sure everythin's okay?" Kaylee hovered over Mal, shifting from foot to foot. "That's an awful lot of blood."

"Cuts on the face bleed more'n you'd think. Zoe rescued me afore anyone did any real damage." Mal grinned at Kaylee, holding Zoe's handkerchief to his face. "Heard you had a tussle of your own with the flare dispenser."

"All fixed now." Kaylee yawned and rubbed her smudged face with the back of one hand. "Think I'll turn in, 'less ya need anythin'?"

"We'll be fine." Zoe turned away from the com and heaved Mal to his feet. "Just going to get this stitched up."

The mechanic skipped up the stairs towards the infirmary, with Zoe and Mal following at a somewhat slower pace, before turning around suddenly. "Oh, hey, Captain. Meant to ask ya earlier, but I picked up some paints at the market the other day. Wouldja mind if I put some flowers 'round the kitchen? It'd pretty things up real nice in there."

"Sure, why not?" Mal winced as his injured knee tapped one of the railing supports.

"Shiny! Thanks, Captain!" Kaylee dashed off towards her room, while Zoe and Mal stumbled into the infirmary. Mal dropped onto the exam chair while Zoe grabbed a clean cloth and the disinfectant off the shelf.

"Better clean that graze, sir."

"Better clean what?" Wash stood at the door._ "__Lao tian ye__, _Mal. Looks like you made a new friend! I'm so eager to not meet them!"

"Hey, I was being real polite. Ain't my fault he decided to take offense." Mal tipped the disinfectant onto the cloth and began to wipe the blood from his face.

Zoe kissed her husband quickly before going to hunt through the drawers. "Looks like we're out of painkillers, sir."

Mal shrugged. "Wouldn't want to waste 'em on this in any case."

"Ever thought of using some of the piles and piles of credits we've just got lying around to hire a medic?" Wash inquired as his wife located a suturing needle and a pair of forceps.

"Husband, you criticizing my doctoring skills?" Zoe grinned briefly as she sterilized her tools.

Wash held up his hands in defense. "Why do you think so little of me? I only wish to keep your lovely perfumed feet from having to touch the ground unless necessary!"

Zoe shook her head, while Mal shot his pilot a questioning look. "Perfumed feet?"

"You'd be surprised. I've heard there's Companions that specialize in..." Wash glanced at Zoe. "Strictly gossip, however. _I _have no experience with such things. But, Mal, seriously, if you rented out one of the shuttles, things might be a bit less no-idea-where-our-next-meal-will-come-from around here."

"Speaking of meals, there's a cardboard box of _bao _in my bag," Zoe informed him. "Thought you might be tired of protein."

"Have I told you today that I love you?"

"Yes. But no complaints here."

Wash went to the door as Zoe began to stitch up the captain's face. "If you need me, I'll be on the bridge, _baobei__." _He disappeared up the stairs.

Zoe tied off the sutures. "You going to get something to eat afore you turn in?"

Mal slid off the exam chair. "Ain't hungry."

"That better not have anything to do with that man as near blew a hole in your face. He was off his head and you know it."

"Wonder which battle his folks were in. Sounded like he had a right personal grudge."

"Don't reckon there's a point in dwelling on it." Zoe began cleaning the forceps and needle.

"No, I suppose not." Mal crossed the threshold. "Goodnight, Zoe."

"Goodnight, sir." Zoe sighed, and finished washing the tools before stowing them back in the drawer. She paused for a few minutes under the infirmary's harsh light. _Four years,_ she thought, _and neither he nor I are any further out of that gorram valley than we were then. And Mal, he ain't willing to share what happened to him there with nobody. At least I trust Wash enough to let him in sometimes. _

The thought of her husband sent Zoe up the stairs to the bridge. Wash sat in the pilot's chair, his Stegosaurus in one hand and the Tyrannosaurus Rex in the other. "Oh, thank you, T-Rex, for saving me from the great river of the control panel! Now I will trust you with my life, even though you are a hungry scheming meat-eating predator and I am probably dinner!" Upon closer examination, Zoe saw that he'd clustered the other dinosaurs around the box of _bao _with their heads inside as if they were nibbling at it.

Zoe grinned. Even if she'd never leave Serenity herself, she could take comfort in the fact that at this moment, all was right with Wash's world.

**To be continued. Reviews are helpful and encouraging!**


	3. River - Cut

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Chapter 3: River **—** Cut**

**The Academy, 2515**

"You are quite sure these parameters you've set up will isolate the neural stripping to the amygdale, Dr. Warder? If you are not confident, it would be better to wait. We will not have a chance like this again."

The man speaking was poised on one side of the glowing imager that was at present constructing a three-dimensional model of a human brain. During the past several minutes, his eyes had moved repeatedly between it and the flat screen showing inner slices of the same organ, but now all his attention was on his colleague's face.

The woman on the other side of imager pushed a strand of dark curly hair behind her ear and met his eyes without flinching. "If you are still concerned about the failure of your previous surgeries—"

"Failure is a strong word. You would have precious little data to work with, had we not 'failed' so many times."

Dr. Warder waved a hand. "You need not be indignant on your own account, Dr. Mathias. The errors can be laid squarely at the feet of those who formerly held my position." She placed a finger on the imager, and the outer layers lifted off smoothly, leaving the inner area and the brain stem exposed. "They were content with secondhand information, rather than psychoanalyzing their subjects themselves. This image I've constructed is of course imperfect—I would be surprised if there were enough scientists in the universe to perfectly analyze River Tam's brain—but I have discovered the key elements that will be relevant to you during your surgery."

Dr. Mathias examined the inner brain closely. "I will not lie, it is quite impressive. But I must say I am surprised you did not work from a model of a normal brain, and make adjustments from that base."

"We must not make the assumption that it is the obvious differences that matter when it comes to River." Dr. Warder paused, then added fondly, "And to lose her would be tragic. She's such a wonderful girl."

Dr. Mathias nodded. "Of course. But we can't become attached, you know that. When River completes her training, Parliament will be eager to put her to use."

"I'm quite aware of that," Dr. Warder replied, turning back to the base of the screen. "But it might perhaps have helped if your former colleagues had been more 'attached' to your previous subjects."

"Which means what?"

"Only that the subjects might still be here if they had."

Dr. Mathias shook his head. "No one is more pained by those deaths than I. As I told you when you came to work here, the doctors responsible were properly reprimanded."

Dr. Warder gave a faint half-smile. "At the time, I was unsure if you were reassuring me or warning me what would happen if I were to fail."

"There will be no failure this time. If I cannot prove to Parliament that we are progressing...it could be the end of all this good work."

"Then we must succeed," Dr. Warder agreed. "The government forgets at times that science as well as laws created civilization. I suppose that I still must stay in the dark about the true purpose for the neural stripping?"

"You would suppose correctly." Dr. Mathias fixed his eyes on the construct of the brain, gleaming gently in the light from the imager. "Secrecy is vital. I am not suggesting you are not to be trusted, of course. But one never knows what, or who, may disrupt all our plans."

**OoOoO**

The assistant surgeon rapped on the doorframe. "Dr. Katsumi Warder? May I come in?"

"Of course." Dr. Warder waved him to a seat. "The last I saw you was a week ago, when you and Dr. Mathias were prepping for the River Tam surgery."

"That's right. Dr. Mathias said you'd expressed concern, since you've been doing psychoanalysis with her. He thought you might want to know that the surgery was an unadulterated success. She isn't awake yet, but that's to be expected."

Dr. Warder let out a breath. "Splendid. He is to be congratulated. And so are you and the other assistants."

"I understand you had no small part in it yourself."

The woman smiled. "For the good of us all. Did he say when my analysis sessions with River would be resuming?"

"Ah, that's the other thing he wanted me to tell you. They won't be."

Dr. Warder frowned. "What do you mean, they won't be?"

The assistant shifted in his chair. "Your psychoanalysis sessions with River Tam won't be resuming."

"You must have misunderstood. Dr. Mathias knows as well as anyone that extensive neural stripping requires concentrated therapy afterwards."

"Oh, he knows that," the assistant said hurriedly. "It's just that _you_ won't be doing the therapy."

"Oh, really? And who will?"

"I didn't ask. He hasn't been in a good mood lately."

"And that's why he neglected to tell me himself that he would be reassigning the sessions?" Dr. Warder snapped, and then what the assistant had said caught up with her. "Wait a moment. You said the surgery was an unadulterated success. Why is Dr. Mathias not in a good mood? He should be bouncing off the walls."

The assistant looked thoroughly miserable. "Don't blame me. I'm just the messenger."

Dr. Warder composed herself. "True. I will speak to Dr. Mathias myself, when an opportunity presents itself."

"That's probably for the best," the assistant agreed, obviously relieved.

**OoOoO**

River Tam, undisputed genius and intuitive phenomenon, lay on the operating chair in a drug-induced haze, trying to remember how one stopped a hurricane. There was a storm in her head, whirling and roaring and tearing, nerves, synapses, too much, too fast.

_They were known on Earth-That-Was as typhoons and tropical cyclones. The most destructive of storms. _

It was gone, entirely gone. They cut it out. Her mind like a window with no glass, a porthole in a submersible, a breach in a spaceship hull, letting the nothing in until it crunched the vessel. The images blasted into her center and left her shaking. The breach of a needle in the soft place inside an elbow, a man sobbing uncontrollably and scraping bloody trails across his cheeks with his nails, a woman wrapped in plastic being slid into a disposal, her face crushed to a pulp and beyond recognition, a jar crammed full of human eyes.

_They have a core, an eye, where air pressure is low. Around the eye, winds can rotate at nearly two hundred miles per hour._

If only her head would slow down for a moment, she could find that ordered space that was before all she had known, as straight and smooth as well-oiled file cabinets. She could herd the monsters back into their cupboards, but what was the use? She would still know they were there. They would reach out with their claws and shred the curtains she put up to make herself forget, silk like her mother's dresses, silk like Simon's vests, silk like the veil of the Companion the assistant surgeon had visited last night, all oil and sliding limbs and shrieks.

_They develop around the equator of a planet with sufficient oceans. Massive storms, they can be over three hundred miles across._

And then she felt the black, outside the planet's protective cushion of atmosphere, and it was unspeakable relief to fall into it, not a thought, not an image, for miles upon miles. Like a rip in her round world, the mouth of some god ready to swallow her, and she begged inwardly to be swallowed, that the stars would eat her—blue giants, white dwarves, red supergiants—reach up and gulp her down, and stop all the pain, the pain she never had been properly able to feel. She saw the planet, hovering like an egg yolk in its shell.

_The top clouds are made of ice, the lower ones, droplets of water. The storms are huge circular bands of cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds._

But the images crashed down again, and they weren't hers, the memories weren't hers, they couldn't be. Not some bat out of hell from her own psyche, not some trauma long since forgotten. These shapes—spiders? hands? flowers?—she had no point of reference for these, they couldn't be quantified, they didn't fit into the proper spectrum, they were blue and they were red, and there was a high-pitched hum and a creak like a rocking chair, and suddenly that image was gone and she could hear words with the images.

_Though hurricanes soon die out over land, they devastate coastlines. They have been known to kill more than a million people in densely packed urban areas._

"Pens in one cup, styluses in another keep them separated and death will not come." "Blood clogging up my mouth and I was still alive when they shut the lid on me." "We're doing such fine work." "Heart going, heart going for one more second before the lightning kicks, in the gleaming wreath that jerks my pulse away." "Numbers and numbers and numbers and I was wrong how could I have been so wrong." "No one touches me and no one writes to me and I don't know why I had to go away."

River screamed.

**To be continued. Reviews are helpful and encouraging!**


	4. Simon - Mistakes

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Translations: **Are below.

Meimei: Little sister

Ben tian-sheng de yil-dui-rou: Stupid inbred stack of meat

Bizui: Shut up

Go-se: Crap

**Chapter 4: Simon **—** Mistakes**

**January 2516**

Simon, as a doctor, was well aware that the body's self-defense mechanisms would prevent him from deliberately knocking himself out with a blow to the head. However, he felt only that would be a proper punishment.

_Waiting outside a compound in a blackout zone, no doubt surrounded by smugglers, thieves, and murderers, you just _had _to bring a thousand credits with you? And leave them in your outer pocket? With your ident card? Oh, and wear clothing that costs more than most of these people probably make in a year? Why not just paint 'rob me' on your back?_

Or maybe the thief had picked something up from what he'd said to the guards at the gate.

_"Oh. You're guards. And you're doing a great job. Keeping me out. Not that I'm__—__not that as guards, you need to keep me out. I'm harmless. But still. You're guards. You have a very guard-like air to you."_

Simon groaned at the memory. It was ridiculous, considering that his _meimei's_ life was possibly at stake, for him to have, of all things, stage fright. He'd planned out carefully what to say to his contact, a woman by the name of Nastasia Ortega, but he hadn't counted on the guards at the gate. He was surprised one of them hadn't knocked him on the head and left him in some alley.

The guard on the right beckoned to him. "Hey, you. Harmless one. She'll see you now."

Simon rose and followed the guard through the inner door and blinked. The entire room was filled with paper and cloth screens—some the cheap variety to be obtained at any open-air market, and others he distinctly recognized as being imported from Sihnon and Ariel. The owner of the room was nowhere to be seen.

"Scrim," the guard explained, jabbing a thumb at the largest screen, which blocked off a substantial section of the room. "Boss can see you, but you can't see her. Bad for business."

"Right." Simon turned awkwardly to the screen. "Mistress Ortega. I am here to make an offer—"

"Congratulations, Alexei," a cultured voice drawled from behind the elaborately woven cloth. "You were right. You, doctor, you have coin with you?"

"Yes. I mean, no! That is—hey, get off!" The guard had pinned his arms.

"Alright, Alexei, take the money off him and shoot him."

"Can't I shoot him first?"

Simon jerked his head back, smashing into the guard's nose. He made no sound, but his grip loosened and Simon jerked away, ducking behind one of the heavier screens.

_This is going to buy me about five seconds. When they move the screen...River, I'm sorry..._

There was a hollow wooden thud, and another set of footsteps ran into the room. "Mistress, we've located Elmer Brandon, who cheated you out of that shipment from Londinium last month. He's tied up in the anteroom."

"That _ben tian-sheng de yil-dui-rou__!_" Ortega spat. "He's not slipping away from me again, the little toad. Alexei, come with me. Rachel, go and—"

"What about the—"

Upon reflection, it might have been a good idea for Simon to open the window before jumping out of it. As it was, the several shots that followed him did not find their mark, but being stuck full of shattered bits of glass hardly improved the situation.

Several hours later, the colleague to whose house Simon had fled extracted the last shard and asked the two obvious questions: "What were you doing and why are you wearing those clothes?"

**April 2516**

"Son of a..." Simon's most recent contact dropped to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

It was one of those days when Simon wondered if his so-called proper upbringing had been infused with any sense of reality whatsoever. Having come to the conclusion that he was going to be spending a certain amount of time in disreputable company, he'd purchased an outfit that would have made him an exile had he worn it to any society dinner function—and the man he'd talked to on the wave had _still _labeled him a target for seduction and probably robbery. Simon shuddered at the idea of what would have happened if one of the guards hadn't been the mother of a former patient.

The door creaked open and the copper-haired woman poked her head inside. "Everything going well in here? The doorman went to get a drink. I thought I'd check in on you two. Make sure he wasn't grabbing what he shouldn't."

"It's fine, Deborah." Simon dropped to his knees beside his unconscious contact and pulled out the viewer in his pocket. "Thank you again for warning me this might be a scam. And letting me borrow your makeup kit."

Deborah leaned against the table. "Hey. Reattaching my daughter's leg is worth a few doses of the Goodnight Kiss. The hamster she named after you is thriving, by the way. So, did he offer to bed you in exchange for some supposed info, like he did with the last five who came in here?"

Simon examined the viewer. "Yes. He said he had detailed information, but this has a wiped drive."

"To be expected. You'd better go."

Simon walked to the door. "I hope this won't cost you your job."

"I'll pretend you hit me on the head when I opened the door, or some such." Deborah paused. "Don't know rightly what you were after when you came here tonight, but if it's Alliance trouble you've got, there may be some help. I know some men...I'll grab your wave code off the database, see what I can do..."

Simon nodded, more to be polite and less because he thought it would do any good. _It's been over eighteen months since I got River's last letter, and I'm no farther along now than I was then. It's only luck that I haven't been arrested by now; I have no idea what I'm doing. If even petty criminals scare me so much I can't see straight, what hope do I have against anything worse?_

**August 2516**

Guns, Simon had decided, were a problem. He was vaguely familiar with sonic rifles, as all Feds carried them, but those were not lethal, whereas he would bet every credit he was carrying (in his inside pocket this time, thank you) that the weapons that abounded in this bar were all kinds of deadly. And though Simon didn't know much about guns themselves, he knew a great deal about gunshot wounds and exactly how fast he would bleed to death if he were shot in any of several places, which was not exactly conducive to relaxation.

A man leaned on the counter beside Simon. "Anyone want to show me whether the service in this bar is worth a damn?" His eyes on the bartender, he slid a card across the splinter-rife counter to Simon, who covered it with his hand. When the man had accepted his drink and moved away, Simon picked up the card, doing his best to be casual. On it were written directions to one of the private rooms. Much as the idea of conducting business without any kind of protection went against all Simon's common sense, he knew he didn't have much choice, not if he wanted to get River back. His months of searching had convinced him there was no safe way—much less any legal way—to do that.

Five minutes later, Simon was ensconced in a shadowy room with three men at least twice his size. One of them winked at him. "Going to compete in the Miss Osiris pageant later?"

_"Bizui_, Tai," the smallest of the men ordered. "Or do you want another of the _go-se_ jobs we've been picking up in the last few weeks?" Tai subsided sullenly and the smaller man turned back to Simon. "Doctor. I'm Jason Andrews. I understand you're looking for information about your sister."

"Yes. Yes, I am." Simon gripped the sides of his chair.

"So you'll be telling me under what circumstances she disappeared."

"She...my family..." Simon mentally ordered himself to get to the point. "She was offered a chance to go to an Alliance Academy. We...didn't know much about it, but she wanted to go. So we sent her there..." He cleared his throat. "And I've been getting coded letters, letters that ask for help, and I—"

"Hold it right there. You've never laid eyes on this Academy?"

"No. We—"

"Never heard of it before then?"

"No..."

"How long ago was this?"

"A little more than a year ago." Simon reached into his pocket. "I brought the letters, and all the information I could find on the Academy. I can show you..."

Andrews held up a hand. "No."

"No, what?"

"I don't want your information. What I want is for you to walk out of here right now and pretend you never heard of us. And if you know what's good for you, you'll forget you ever had a sister."

Simon stared. "But why?"

Andrews leaned forward. "I'll tell you why. I was on the right side of the law when it came to investigating, once. Then, one day, some couple comes to me because their son has gone and disappeared into an Alliance Academy just like the one you're describing."

"Then you know—" Simon began excitedly.

"What I know is that I made some simple inquiries and got dragged in for questioning by the Feds. I was stupid enough to not take their warnings seriously. So I dig a little deeper, and suddenly there's a warrant on the Cortex for my arrest and all my funds are frozen."

"But you don't even know how much I'm willing to pay—"

Andrews stood and waved at his men. "Come on, boys. We've got a _go-se_ job to take."

**OoOoO**

An hour later, Simon was fishing in his pocket for the key to the front door of his apartment when he heard footsteps behind him and whirled around.

"It's just me. No need to get skittish." His MedAcad friend Joanna, who lived in the same building, climbed the steps and pulled out her own key. "Hey, Simon, mind if I come in your place for a bit?"

"Of course not." It seemed like the thing to say, despite the fact that all he wanted to do right now was sleep. Simon had spent too much of his life governed by what was expected to have the energy to fight the habit, not when all he had was going to locating River. _The one really subversive thing I've done in my life and I can't even make it work..._

Simon let Joanna into his apartment and stumbled into the kitchen. "I was going to..." What had he planned to do? Make tea. That was courteous, wasn't it? "Would you like some?"

"Some what?"

"Tea." He had said that, hadn't he?

"Sure, if it's not too much trouble. You look exhausted." Joanna peered at the remains of his latest carving project on the table. "Those are really nice. Where'd you learn to carve matryoshka dolls?"

Simon's mind only vaguely registered the latter sentences. "I'm not."

"What?"

"Not exhausted. Just a little..." What was the word for how he felt? "Had a long day."

Joanna moved away from the table. "Simon. We're worried about you."

Simon turned, milk in one hand. "Who's worried...why?"

"Us. Your friends. Because you look tired all the time and refuse to even think about taking time off, and you turn up with injuries you don't explain, and you tell us you're going home at night but I know you don't, and you've taken to wearing all those layers to hide how much weight you've lost."

Simon was about to snap off some retort about how it looks like she was made official spokesperson for the Society of Unwanted Solicitousness, but suddenly forming sentences seemed like a lot of work. "Well...I haven't been...myself lately..."

"No, you haven't. Something's really wrong, isn't it?"

Simon turned away. "I don't think..." The milk was shaking. His hands were shaking. He was a surgeon, his hands never shook. "What...I don't..."

"Simon, are you alright?" Joanna hurried over to him.

"Of course." Simon set the milk down, only vaguely realizing how much the world was wavering around the edges. "It's all very..." He was on the floor. How had that happened? Joanna's worried face swam before his eyes. "I'm perfectly..."

The next thing Simon remembered were two medics standing over him, their gentle questions only a buzz in his ears, and the only clear thing being his own voice, repeating the same words again and again.

"They're hurting us. Get me out. They're hurting us..."

**To be continued. Reviews are helpful and encouraging!**


	5. Jayne - Switch

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Translations: **Are below.

Ta ma de hun dan: Mother-humping son of a bitch

Bizui: Shut up

Le-se: Garbage

Wang-ba dan de biao-zi: Whores of sons of bitches

Baobei: Sweetheart

**Chapter 5: Jayne **—** Switch**

**October 2516**

"I told you he weren't to be trusted, Marco!" the indignant henchman shouted after his leader. "Didn't I tell him, Jayne?"

Jayne propped up his feet on a spare crate. "Hey, Bruno, ya don't want in on this, I'll have your share."

"What's there left to have in on, huh? Alferes sold us out, the _ta ma de hun dan!"_ Bruno turned back to the door to the bridge where Marco had vanished. "And I said he would, but you never listen to me, do you? If I told you once, I told you ten times—"

"Fifteen." Jayne drew one of his numerous knives and began picking his teeth.

Bruno paused in his ranting to shoot a look at his ally. "Fifteen what?"

"Ya told him fifteen times. Sixteen, countin' this one. Gonna make our ears fall off."

Bruno kicked the crate out from under Jayne's feet. "You keep hirin' cheap whores like the one you had last night, ears ain't the only thing as is gonna be fallin' off!"

"Ya just think that 'cause you kiss 'em on the mouth."

_"__Bizui__,_ you two," came Marco's voice from the bridge. "I'm gettin' a wave here."

"Who cares? We ain't—"

Jayne threw his knife into the wall a foot from Bruno's ear. He leapt back and glared, but seemed to think better of any further lecturing. Jayne pulled out a second knife and began sharpening it. Bruno, having worn out his brains for the day coming up with Reasons Why Alferes Ain't To Be Trusted, stared sullenly into space.

After a few minutes had passed, Marco strolled back into the decrepit room that served as kitchen for his crew. "Good news, boys. Looks like the double-crosser got double-crossed. 'Least, accordin' to him, that's what happened."

"Deserved it enough," Jayne grunted. "Ya got a point?"

"Point bein', he's willin' to let us be takin' the goods back from those as crossed him. Told me where they are. Crew of some _le-se_ Firefly."

"Won't end well," Bruno prophesied. "Nothin' to do with Alferes—"

Jayne interrupted. "Won't they be expectin' somethin' like this? Hid the goods somewhere?"

Marco grinned. "That's where you come in. Reckon you can make 'em say where they dropped 'em?"

Jayne reached over and wrenched his knife out of the wall. "Can do, boss."

**OoOoO**

Tracking the _wang-ba dan de biao-zi_ they'd been passed over for didn't prove as easy as Jayne had expected, but that was more than made up for by the fact that they caught at least two of the crew by surprise—and from the looks of things, those were the ones in charge. At least, no one else appeared to be swooping down to the rescue.

"Well, looks like you boys got us right where you want us." The man in the brown coat seemed uncannily cheerful for being held at gunpoint. "It's the why I'm having trouble figuring out just now. Zoe?"

"More interested in the what happens next, sir."

"You cheated us!" Bruno couldn't keep his mouth shut. "Alferes was supposed to be holdin' those goods for us!"

"Well, we ain't got no say in how he conducts his business. Now, why don't we all just be reasonable here?"

"Reason?" Marco's tone betrayed his thoughts on that matter. "He's gonna talk to us about reason now."

"Yeah." Jayne snorted. "That's a joke."

The brown-coated man glanced at the woman beside him—Zoe, Jayne remembered. "Which one do you figure tracked us?"

"The ugly one, sir."

The man began nodding, then paused. "Could you be more specific?"

Jayne guessed he'd just been insulted, and these people were for sure not adequately afraid of him. He was ready to give as good as he got, but Marco beat him to it.

"Do we look reasonable to you?"

"Well," the man replied, "looks can be deceiving."

Jayne jumped in. "Not as deceivin' as a low-down, dirty..." He searched for the proper word. "Deceiver." Marco laughed.

"Well said," the man said seriously. "Wasn't that well said, Zoe?"

"Had a kind of poetry to it, sir," Zoe replied calmly.

Jayne was now certain he was being made fun of. "Ya want I should shoot 'em now, Marco?"

"Wait until they tell us where they put the stuff."

"That's a good idea," Jayne said approvingly, glancing from the brown-coated man to Zoe. "Good idea. Tell us where the stuff's at so I can shoot ya."

The man raised a hand. "Point of interest? Offering to shoot us might not work so well as an incentive as you might imagine." Jayne considered that. Man could have a point. "Anyway, we've hidden it. So, you kill us, you'll never find it."

"Found you easy enough," Jayne retorted.

"Yeah," the man said thoughtfully. "Yeah, you did, didn't you." He considered Jayne for a moment. "How much they paying you?"

Jayne blinked. "Huh?"

"I mean, let's say you did kill us. Or didn't. There could be torture. Whatever. But somehow you found the goods. What would your cut be?"

"Seven percent, straight off the top," Jayne informed him. Marco had made a point, when he'd hired Jayne, of pointing out that he didn't take out the costs of running their ship before paying his crew. People on a ship like this probably couldn't manage that much.

"Seven?" The man looked surprised. "Huh."

"What?"

"Hmm? Nothing. Not a thing. No, I just..." He glanced at Zoe. "That seem low to you?"

"It does, sir."

"That ain't low—"

Marco cut in. "Stop it!"

Jayne ignored him. "Seven percent's standard."

The man laughed, his eyes going to his colleague. "Okay, Zoe, I'm paying you too much."

"Why? What does she get?" Jayne demanded. _If Marco's cheatin' me..._

Said leader interrupted Jayne's thoughts. "Knock it off!"

"Look, forget I said anything," the man said soothingly. "I'm sure you're treated very well. You get all the perks...got your own room...No?"

_Own room? Now there's a concept..._

"You share a bunk?" the man demanded incredulously.

Jayne spared Bruno a look. "With that one." Bruno hastily raised his gun and tried to look intimidating.

"Really?"

"Jayne!" Marco looked ready to shoot. "This ain't funny!"

"Yeah, I ain't laughin.'"

"You move on over to our side," the man told him, "we'll not only show you where the stuff's at, we'll see to it you get your fair share. Not no sad seven."

Jayne didn't trust easy, but people smart enough to spin up a strategy like this at gunpoint were bound to come up with better plans than Marco, who created over-fancy heists one day, and got them caught for having outdated papers the next. And better plans meant more coin. "Private room?"

_"Jayne!" _

"Your own room. Full run of the kitchen. Whole shot."

_So that __le-se__ ship has a kitchen worth the mentioning, does it? _

Marco's yammering interrupted him. "Jayne. I ain't askin'—"

Jayne shot him in the foot to rid himself of the distraction. "Shut up." He aimed the gun at Bruno, in case the man decided to prove he had more hair than brains. "How big a room?"

**OoOoO**

Turned out Jayne had no reason to regret his decision. 'Spite of what he'd implied, he and Marco and Bruno never woulda found the goods on their own. He'd kept Ella, the gun he carried, at the ready in case the man and Zoe had made up their minds to shoot him soon as he was away from the others, but as it happened, they seemed glad enough to have another pair of hands.

The man, who'd introduced himself to Jayne as Captain Malcolm Reynolds, directed Zoe and Jayne to help him store the crates in a hidden hatch of the Firefly, before going to the com on the wall. "Wash, take us out of the world." He turned to Jayne. "So, Jayne Cobb. See you know a good opportunity when you see one. Not a half-bad tracker, either. Presume you've got other skills, but we'll cover those later. Seeing as you haven't tried to shoot us yet—which is a habit you should cultivate, by the way—let's have you meet the rest of the crew. Zoe, where's Kaylee?"

"Believe she's in the engine room, sir. I'll go tell Wash not to crash the ship again." She climbed the stairs away from the cargo bay.

"She's jokin', right?" Jayne asked the captain, who was checking the hatch was secure. "Right?"

The captain straightened up and strode towards the stairs where Zoe had disappeared. "Come on up to the engine room. Our mechanic's in there. Best in the 'verse," he added with pride. The floor vibrated underneath them as the pilot, whoever he was, fired it up.

Jayne took in what he could see of the ship as he climbed the stairs after the captain. She looked like she wouldn't know new if it lived next door for ten years, but at least she seemed well cared for. He'd known captains who'd let a ship rust to pieces rather than take the trouble of cleaning and replacing the parts. Serenity, she was called, apparently. Name rang a bell, but he couldn't recall from where.

The captain paused at the door to the engine room. "Kaylee! Get yourself out here, there's someone you gotta meet."

Jayne peered through the door. There was the main engine, a maze and tangle of rotating parts, all humming gently and all beyond his comprehension. A pair of legs wearing green coveralls and boots were all he could see of the mechanic.

"Hold on just a sec." A hand emerged from under the engine and fumbled in an toolbox open next to her. "Got it." She withdrew a wrench and the arm disappeared again. A few moments later, a pink-cheeked face smudged with engine grease and topped with a messy knot of shiny brown hair emerged from beneath the mechanisms. "Hey, Captain, how'd it go? Didja make a new friend?" She beamed at Jayne. "Where're ya from?"

"He's joined up with us, right enough." The captain informed Kaylee as she grabbed a bemused Jayne's hand and shook it enthusiastically. "Being on the business end of a gun ain't how I usually start a friendship, but new experiences are broadening, or so they tell me."

"Gun?" Kaylee crinkled her forehead. "But ya said..."

The captain jerked a thumb at him. "Jayne here and his people tracked us down. He made the wise decision to hop on over to our side, get himself a raise."

"Damn straight." Jayne looked at her appreciatively. "Nice to meet ya, Miss Kaylee."

Kaylee grinned. "You too. Ever need anythin' fixed, I'm your girl." She turned to the captain. "I've done just 'bout all as can be done on the synchronizers. They'll hold a little longer, but repairin' 'em won't do. Gonna need new ones. I'm gettin' some weirdness off the port compression coil too."

"We'll see what we can do 'bout the synchronizers," the captain told her. "No way we can replace the compression coil for a good long while. Does it still work?"

"Yeah..."

"Then we keep it."

Kaylee sighed and crossed to a colorful hammock hung in one corner of the engine room. "Well, we'll be okay for now. Jayne, ya met Wash yet?"

"I'm just taking him up there now. See you at dinner, little Kaylee." The girl waved cheerily as the captain and Jayne exited the room.

Jayne lowered his voice as they tramped off towards the bridge. "So, ya ever tried her out in the hammock?"

The captain whipped back around to stare at Jayne. "You're new on this boat, so let me make one thing very clear to you. Kaylee ain't to be trifled with. I won't have you playing on her big heart just to get yourself some action. Get sexed all you want when you're on leave, but that's it."

"Don't know if the young lady would appreciate you meddlin' in her affairs."

The captain held Jayne's gaze. "My ship, my rules. I don't care how often you've been told that disobeying orders could end with you out an airlock—on this boat, it's for real. Kaylee ain't a joke to me, nor to anyone else here." He turned around and headed for the bridge. "Wash! Am I gonna see something as should be saved for the bunk?"

"I'm wounded, Mal," came an unfamiliar voice through the door. "We do retain some shred of civilization here." The two men crossed through the door.

Zoe was leaning against the console, beside a scruffy-looking blond-haired man, intensely focused on the piloting mechanisms. Set within reach were several plastic dinosaurs, as might have been picked up in a toy shop on any border planet. Jayne turned to Mal. "Ya got kids on this boat?"

"No. They're Wash's." Mal gestured at the blond man.

"Gets lonely on the bridge sometimes. That is, when one of our crew members hasn't decided to grace me with their company." Wash spun his chair around and caught sight of Jayne. "Zoe, love of my life, light of my eyes, who is the large and extremely suspicious-looking, and by that I mean extremely good-looking, new recruit?"

"Name's Jayne," Zoe replied briefly.

"As in Jane Austen?" Wash asked brightly. "Was your mother a fan?"

"What are you sayin' about my momma?"

Mal cut in. "Jayne, ain't nobody talking bad about your momma. Wash, who the hell is Jane Austen?"

"I'm just tellin' ya, little man—"

Wash winked. "I'm sure your mother is a fine woman. Besides...my wife can kill you with her big toe. Right, _baobei?"_ He leaned over and pulled Zoe into his lap.

"Oh, I don't know, husband. It might take my whole foot."

Jayne folded his arms. "So they get some in the black and I don't?"

"You have working hands, don't you?" Mal disappeared back through the door. "C'mon, I'll show you the kitchen and your bunk." Jayne shook his head and followed.

**Note **

The scene where Jayne decides to join the crew, as many fans will recognize, matches the flashback in _Out of Gas._ It was never quite clear to me how Jayne would have managed to retrieve any of his belongings from his old ship, after turning on his old crew, but hey, canon happens.

**To be continued. Reviews are helpful and encouraging!**


	6. Book - Encounter

**Note **

I conceived of this story, and my version of Book's history, before _The Shepherd's Tale_ came out. I've chosen to keep with my original theories, so this story will be AU in that it ignores the comics.

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Translations: **Are below.

Yu ben de: Stupid

**Chapter 6: Book **—** Encounter**

**Persephone, November 2516**

"We call that failure." The blue-gloved man tapped a finger on the table. "You have _failed _to convince Geming to cooperate with us."

"But I have made progress," Aaron reminded him. "You understand he's an extremely unusual case."

"We were given to understand that you were used to dealing with such cases. Of course, facts may have been misrepresented."

"I have told you the absolute truth about my abilities, sir."

The other blue-gloved man smiled. "No doubt. You must understand, others have been foolish, and our work has no room for that. But you are wiser."

"Yes. Yes, naturally."

"And yet, for all that, you have not gotten one useful word from Geming since his case was passed to you—"

"No one else did either." Aaron protested.

"—and I understand that Sumner has eluded your attempts to capture him. With little apparent effort."

"That was mere luck," Aaron said, more confident now. "His organization is chaotic; they all work independently, without even informing each other of their projects. They could never stage an effective government takeover."

"They also are prevented from betraying each other," the blue-gloved man told him. "But leave Sumner for now. He is clever, and it will take more than a few weeks of work to bring him to justice."

The other blue-gloved man took over. "It is your failure with Geming we are concerned about now. Use whatever methods you must, but if you cannot bring him to see reason by the end of this week, we will be forced to take over his case ourselves."

Aaron nodded. "I will. Bring him to see reason."

"See to it." The blue-gloved man nodded to his partner, and they both left Aaron's workspace.

Aaron propped his head on his hands. Not one person had been able to resist his methods since he began this job, and yet Geming...his pain threshold was high, and he was incredibly resistant to the psychological methods. And Aaron never wanted to see the Hands of Blue again as long as he worked here. Even his fellow interrogators were too frightened to talk about what they did to break the subjects.

And he should never have agreed to take on Sumner. He had experience with revolutionaries, of course, but most of them tripped up by trying to confront the government head on. Sumner, as the talk said, came at you sideways. Aaron hadn't realized how true that was until three of his capture attempts had been turned into traps for his own people. It made him wonder just where the man had spies.

Well, he could worry about Sumner later. Now was the time to break Geming. The trouble was, the Hands of Blue wanted him sane enough to give information. Aaron wouldn't put it past the man to go mad deliberately just to keep from telling what he knew. And there was only one person Aaron was aware of who could help him now.

Aaron stood up. It was time to pay a very old friend a visit.

**OoOoO**

Shepherd Derrial Book had had a good day. Working in the small garden of the Southdown Abbey always calmed his spirit, and he'd been entertained by the two brothers who'd joined him. He had his doubts that these particular two was meant for the monastic life—they enjoyed their own regular practical jokes far too much—but that just made them better company, and they knew better than to do anything to Book's garden.

_Or perhaps they don't want to jeopardize their chances for fresh vegetables, _Book thought, amused. It was ironic that fresh food was actually more common in the diets of permanent residents on some border planets, as many of them tended to be farmers, than it was on the more urban planets closer to the Core. Most city-dwellers didn't live on creatively cooked protein, as did the modern version of nomads who lived out of their spaceships, but that didn't mean the food they ate was fresh. There wasn't much room for gardens in Persephone's capital city.

Book returned his drifting thoughts to the Bible in front of him. Many he knew found it comforting because of the seeming simplicity of the message—lead a righteous life, according to what you find written here, and God will take care of the rest. Book and the scholars he worked with, though, knew that their holy volume was rife with contradictions, and only through careful study could one tell what God's message really was. _If faith didn't leave room for error and interpretation, I could never follow it. My life has shown me too much pain and trouble for me to accept assurances that bad things only happen to people who don't obey God's word._

Of course, the Bible didn't put much emphasis on monasteries, and Book frequently wondered if he was really doing his proper work if he hid in here—it was hiding for him, if not for others—without bringing the Word to those who needed it. However, most of his doubts tended to be overcome by memories of what he had seen done (and mistakenly condoned) during previous travels between the worlds. He could justify living in the Abbey if it meant he would do less harm here than outside.

"Book?"

He looked up. Father Nianzu, the abbot, was standing beside him. "The man outside the gate? He's been asking for you again."

Book kept his voice neutral. "Really?"

"He has been there for two days. Are you quite sure he doesn't need help?"

"As I have said, allowing him to come into the Abbey would be a bad idea for all of us."

Father Nianzu sighed and sat beside Book. "If you would tell me your history with him, I would be better advised on how to proceed."

"It was long before I became a Shepherd, Father." Book finally looked up. "Those doors are closed to me now."

Father Nianzu peered at him closely. "May I make a request of you?"

"I cannot promise to say yes, but I am always glad to listen to your advice."

"I know a little of your past, and as you say, it is closed to you now. As it should be." Father Nianzu took a breath. "But this man could be a bad enemy to make. If all he wishes to do is talk to you, perhaps you should oblige him."

Book clenched his jaw. "He never wants to just talk. There is always an end in mind, an end that will serve his own purposes." He forced himself to relax. "But as you say, perhaps there is little harm in speaking to him. I should not like to imperil my home and those in it."

Father Nianzu smiled. "You know, the Shepherds here are not fragile. They can take life as it comes. I merely would not like them to suffer unnecessarily."

"A worthy sentiment. Very well, let us go to the gate." Book tucked his Bible under one arm, in hopes that that would make his allegiance clear. He had recognized the man outside at first glance, and was determined to grant no request of his, however innocent it appeared.

_It is as much for my sake as for the sake of those around me. I would not like to be tempted into paths best not trodden. Or not re-trodden, if we are being brutally honest. _

The abbot nodded to Book as they reached the gate. "By when shall we look for you?"

"This evening," Book replied, stepping outside.

The man, who was pacing by the bench against the sun-baked wall of the abbey, looked up at the creak of the gate. "You came, thank goodness." He lowered his voice. "I need your help."

"I doubt you are interested in a sermon, Aaron. However much you might need it."

"That's not the help I meant and you know it." Aaron sighed. "Advice, at least. I'm in over my head. Can't you let me in for a few minutes?"

"No, I'm afraid not. However, I would be glad to accompany you to somewhere we could talk privately, if advice is all you want."

"We can go to my place. It isn't far from here."

**OoOoO**

"No."

"Look, I'm not asking for your help with Sumner. I can handle Sumner."

Book set his cup of tea down. "I doubt that very much. Do you know how long he and his partners did their work before the Alliance was even aware that TALENT existed?"

"Yes! I know it was a long time! But we're aware of them now, so—"

"They were around even before the Independents rebelled, since the beginning of the Alliance. You're trying to catch a man with nearly a decade of subterfuge under his belt. And trying to arrest only individuals in such a movement is a mistake anyway. They all have replacements ready to step in at any time."

Aaron slammed his hand down on the table. "I don't care about the _yu ben de_ movement! My job is to catch Sumner, and I'll do it. My superiors can worry about the rest. But it's Geming I need your help with now."

Book raised his eyebrows. "I thought I had made my opinion on that matter clear."

"He won't break. He won't break, and I don't know how he's doing it, and I can't ask anyone at work for help. We all spy on each other; it'd get back to the Hands of Blue within the day. But you can—"

"No, I can't."

"You mean you won't."

"Very well. I won't."

Aaron folded his arms. "You're not doing any good by refusing. Individuals have no power on their own, can't you see that? If we work together, for the greater good—"

"Yes, I see they've done a very good job on you."

"If he doesn't break soon, I don't know what will happen to me."

"Then get out," Book implored him. "Leave before they decide you're not worth it, before they realize you know too much."

"I can't, and if I could, I wouldn't. Just, all I need is some advice. Surely you haven't forgotten—"

"No, I haven't. I only wish I had." Book stood up. "Goodbye, Aaron. Think about what I said."

**OoOoO**

"It isn't my fault!" Aaron paced back and forth in front of the desk. "I had no control over—"

"And your lack of control is exactly what has caused this aberration, this _scandal._" The blue-gloved man stared at him coldly. "We had the greatest potential source of information on TALENT in our hands, and you allowed him to slip away, aided by the man you were supposed to capture."

The other blue-gloved man looked down his nose at Aaron. "Now Geming is free, and Sumner with him, and we have evidence to suggest they have both left the planet. Where they have gone, we do not know, and from your past failings, we expect that neither do you."

Aaron wiped sweat from his brow. "I..."

"Persephone is no longer a worthy base for our operations," the first blue-gloved man continued. "We will be relocating." He removed a small instrument from his pocket. "Due to this event, you will not be joining us."

"Then what should I—" Aaron stopped at the feel of liquid dripping from his nose. Surprised, he put his hand up to his face. It came away bloody. _What the..._

He felt something thick and heavy rising in his throat, choking him. He spat into his palm, and saw blood, dark red and oozing. There was more and more now, swirling around his teeth, coating his tongue, dripping from the corners of his mouth. He felt a pop, and a spear of white-hot pain in one eye. Through wavering vision, he could see the Hands of Blue watching dispassionately. Aaron tried to scream, but only inhaled liquid. He was drowning, he realized, drowning in his own blood.

It was the last thing he would ever know.

**To be continued. Reviews are helpful and encouraging!**


	7. Simon - Honesty

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Translations: **Are below.

Ni ta ma de. Tianxia suoyoude ren. Dou gaisi: Everyone under the heavens ought to go die

Jian huo: Cheap floozy

Kuang-zhe de: Nuts - as in crazy

Dong ma?: Understand?

Meimei: Little sister

**Chapter 7: Simon **—** Honesty**

**Osiris, February of 2517**

"Move on out! Come on, let us through!"

"There'll be time enough for negotiating when you can prove you have the coin."

"I don't trust her, sir. I wouldn't..."

Simon gripped his drink and tried to shut out the noise. The bar's better-off residents were a mismatched collection of underground merchants, the men in oft-darned suits, the women in knockoffs imitating the latest fashions, all escorted by iron-faced guards who made no attempt to conceal their weapons. The smugglers from which the merchants purchased were even more numerous, and their competition for buyers was producing enough tension to ignite the air. Mingled with both parties were pickpockets ready to take advantage of the guest who looked more prosperous than usual. Despite his deliberately disreputable clothing, Simon was aware he still probably fell into this category.

"I'll take another, and one for my friend here..."

_"Ni ta ma de. Tianxia suoyoude ren. Dou gaisi!_"

"That ain't nearly enough for what you're askin'—"

In a few months, Simon realized, it would be two years since he'd received River's coded letter. He could barely remember a time before most of life had become a process of going through the motions, all his resources completely focused on the slippery task of rescuing his sister. In the daytime, he took his patients one at a time, unable to see beyond his next meeting with a contact. In the nighttime, he dreamed of his sister, dreams that changed in an instant from River dancing to River screaming.

"Watch where you're going!"

"Well, that'll wrap it up. Looks like maybe we can do business."

"...see if you get a better deal from anyone else..."

Simon knew his family and friends were worried about his mental health. To be frank, they had reason to be, but Simon was willing to hang on to sanity by a thread if it meant he could help the sister he loved. But terror for River was only part of the problem. Simon, like all those around him, had built his entire life around the assumption that the government was basically good, or at least could be relied upon to preserve his safety and the safety of his family. But that belief had begun to erode months ago, when his legal inquiries were met with cold resistance. The doubts had gotten even worse when he met contact after contact who took it for granted that the Alliance would imprison or kill them if given the smallest excuse. They might be criminals, but Simon had come to see them as people trying to survive in a world far harsher than his.

"You _jian huo__! _Stay away from my man!"

"Pass that bottle down, will you?"

"Dr. Tam?"

Simon looked up to see a heavyset, black-haired man, his face rife with raw pink scars, standing beside his stool. He wore no obvious weapons, but Simon knew that didn't mean he had none. "Yes. That's me." He'd not seen this man before, but he fit the description given him by the mother of his former patient, Deborah, in their most recent wave.

_"He's not the easiest person in the world to get along with," _she'd said, _"but I think he and his partner will be able to help you. Just don't get complacent. They hate that."_

"Got a private room to talk in," the scarred man said in a harsh drawl. "Friend's in there now, checkin' for any eavesdroppin' devices as would be a problem."

Simon stood. "I appreciate your coming to meet me. Thank you."

"Time for thanks if ya get what ya want," the scarred man advised, turning towards the door. "Follow me."

They made their way through the crowd, ducking around prostitutes and those serving drinks, passing a corner full of gamblers on their way to the door. The scarred man slapped away a thief trying to get a hand in his pocket, and ducked into the hall. Simon followed quickly.

The dark corridor led to a series of entry ways, some separated from the hall by nothing but old curtains. Simon was grateful when the scarred man led him to a solid wooden door and pushed it open.

In one corner of the room stood another man, thinner and taller than the first. He appeared younger than the scarred man, perhaps in his late thirties, despite his prematurely grey hair. "We're all clear," he announced, his accent crisp and formal. "This is the doctor, I suppose."

"So he says," grunted the scarred man. "'Least, his story checks out."

"Good." The taller man waved at the wobbling table and chairs that graced the room. "Let us sit. And do tell Dr. Tam your pseudonym, so he can stop thinking of you as 'the scarred man.'"

Simon blinked while the scarred man glared at his companion. "Go cheat on your wife, Sumner."

"My wife can beat up your honor student," Sumner told him. He turned to Simon. "As you heard, I am called Sumner."

"My colleague's too educated for his own good," the scarred man grumbled. "I'm Geming."

Simon nodded. "I'm pleased to meet you. Deborah has said good things about you."

"Ain't hardly described us accurately then. All criminals here."

"That's right," Sumner agreed serenely. "You're a traitor, I'm a traitor, that's the way it is. But you want to know about your sister."

"Yes. River." Simon dug his nails into the heels of his hands.

"Got no good news for you on that account," Geming informed him. "Alliance has their claws into her now. Hardly likely to ever let her go."

Simon swallowed. "Then she really is in danger at the Academy." He'd been sure what River said was true, but never before had another person acknowledged it.

"I'll say. Ain't no kid in that place ever come out the way they went in. Supposed to be geniuses, but they're _kuang-zhe de_when they leave. If they leave at all."

Simon stared. _"__Kuang-zhe de?_But why?"

"Because the Alliance considers your sister government property," Sumner said. "They want to mold her body and mind to suit their needs."

Simon's stomach roiled. "Mold...how?"

"With propaganda, with mind-altering chemicals. Possibly even with surgery; we cannot be sure. To state it bluntly, they are playing with her brain."

Chest and throat burning, Simon stared at Sumner. "But River isn't—she's not a toy! She's—" Gifted? A prodigy? Precious and rare? So his parents had said, and taught their children that intelligence and status conferred privilege. _Is this what life is truly like? _Simon wondered bitterly. _Must people trade their daughters for the privilege of keeping a record free of black marks?_

"To them she's a toy," Geming said harshly. "Actually, to them she's a tool. Don't know for what purpose, though."

Simon found his voice. "What do I have to do?"

"What do you mean?" Sumner asked warily.

"To get her out. There must be a way. No facility is impenetrable."

"Ya got no idea what you're askin'," Geming broke in. "No idea. The risk involved—"

"I have money. I'll pay whatever it takes. My parents will help."

"Will they?" Sumner raised an eyebrow. "Hardly anyone would willingly get involved with such a scheme."

"Once I explain, they'll understand." Simon twisted his hands in the fabric of his pants, hoping beyond hope that what he said was true.

"And once she's out, just where're ya goin' to take her?" Geming inquired. "Trust me, there's no place you can run where they ain't gonna come lookin' for ya. You'd have to hit the border planets, and odds are someone like yourself wouldn't last a day even there."

"I'll take that chance."

Sumner looked at him seriously. "You could lose everything, Dr. Tam. You've never been off the Core, I'm guessing?" Simon shook his head. "You would have to live like an outlaw. Have you ever visited an Alliance prison? A real one, not the pleasant front they show trustees and tourists." Sumner didn't wait for an answer. "That's if you survive, _dong ma?_ If some bounty hunter doesn't put a bullet through your brain to get to your sister. It only takes one time, one mistake."

"But it could be done."

Geming and Sumner traded looks. "Ain't rightly sure," the former finally replied. "We've not got the fundin', and ya gotta have an insider for this kinda thing, and we—"

"May have one, actually," Sumner said thoughtfully.

"What? Not Swallowtail? I thought we couldn't be sure of her."

"Well, it is a risk, but without her, we can do nothing."

Geming shook his head. "Ain't worth it."

Simon cleared his throat. "It is to me. Is there anything I could do to persuade you to put me in touch with this Swallowtail?"

"You and Swallowtail could not do it alone, Dr. Tam," Sumner said, not unkindly.

Geming observed Simon shrewdly. "Bet that wouldn't stop ya, though, would it? Try and do it on your lonesome if we don't help ya."

Simon raised his chin. "Yes, I would."

"You know," Sumner mused, "if we did manage this, we would have the evidence to prevent others from entering the Academy, to some extent at least. And it would build confidence in our ranks. That's been sorely lacking lately."

"Your ranks?" Simon inquired.

"None of your business," Geming growled repressively. "Unless we agree, which we ain't likely to."

Sumner frowned at Simon. "She may not even be your sister, truly. Who can guess what kind of damage they've done to her mind? She might not know you anymore. She might be in a completely vegetative state. Why do you risk so much?"

_Gifted. A prodigy. Rare and precious. _His parent's words, not his. "Because she's my _meimei."_

The two men were silent for a moment. Then Geming heaved himself to his feet. "Well, we'll talk about it. Get back to ya with our decision."

"Thank you."

"There is not much to thank us for, yet," Sumner replied.

"You told me the truth." Simon paused by the door. "It's more than anyone else has done." He left the room.

Geming looked after him. "That's a good man. 'Course, that ain't gonna stop him from becomin' a dead one, but still..."

Sumner cocked his head, listening. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Sirens. It's a raid."

Simon had just entered the main area when he saw a man being knocked to the floor by a sonic rifle. People were pouring for the exits, pushing and shoving and screaming. Someone rammed into Simon and he tripped over a bar stool, crashing to the ground. By the time he scrambled to his feet, he and those nearest to him were surrounded by Feds. The one nearest to him spoke as he removed handcuffs from his belt.

"You are bound by law for the crime of presence in a blackout zone."

**Note **

I had fun with the pseudonyms in this chapter. Geming means 'revolution,' and Sumner was the name of an anti-slavery senator during the Civil War.

**To be continued. Reviews are helpful and encouraging!**


	8. Kaylee - Business

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Translations: **Are below.

Wo de ma: Mother of God

Dang ran: Of course

Fei hua: Nonsense/Crap talk

Ta ma de: Damn it

Oh, zhe zhen shi ge kuaile de jinzhan: Oh, this is a happy development

**Chapter 8: Kaylee — Business**

**February 2517**

"I don't hardly believe it," Kaylee whispered. "Captain, ya see?"

_"Wo de ma."_Jayne's voice held the appreciation of an expert.

"Husband, I don't like that look in your eyes," Zoe told Wash. "I ain't wanting to start any fights tonight, that clear?"

"You wound me." Wash placed a hand over his heart. "I am a big, strong, into-the-whole-marriage-and-commitment-thing man."

Kaylee looked up at her Captain with huge eyes, knowing he could never resist that look unless there were several lives at stake. "Captain, please? It's _real chocolate._"

"Your cut, your game, little Kaylee. If Jayne tries to steal any, whack him with your wire cutters. We're on a job here, and I need him to stand behind me looking intimidating."

"I, ah, think I better go along," Wash said hastily. "That mousse could, you know, be poisoned. I should taste it before Kaylee. Ladies need protecting."

"You surely didn't learn that from me," Zoe said dryly. "Captain, our contact should be here soon."

"Well, it might just be me, but I feel like our looking-intimidating might be a tad compromised by a pilot and mechanic all covered in chocolate. So you two just stand over there and we'll pretend we don't know you."

"I'll take that in the spirit in which it was intended," Wash said cheerfully.

Kaylee didn't stay around to hear the rest of the conversation. She couldn't think of nothing else when that fancy chocolaty swirl thing was in the room, so she reckoned it was for everyone's good if she got a bit of it as soon as possible.

Perched on a stool, running her tongue along the rim of her spoon, Kaylee glanced brightly around the room while she waited for the nice man to serve up her bowl of mousse. There weren't no one here yet looked nearly disreputable enough to be their contact, and she hoped he or she hadn't decided to skip out on them. It'd make the Captain and Zoe and Jayne no end of grumpy; Captain and Zoe 'cause they'd have to take that job from Badger and Badger worried them worse'n flies in pudding, and Jayne 'cause he wouldn't get paid near as fast. 'Sides, no job meant the Captain wouldn't hear of buying those real shiny synchronizers she'd spotted on the way here. Her girl Serenity had been talking to her, saying they were needed bad. 'Course, they hadn't had cash to spare for weeks, not since the repairs needed after Jayne tried out that new-fangled grenade thing he'd picked up cheap on Beaumonde. It'd driven the raiders who'd followed 'em away, but had also made a dent in the primary buffer panel as had taken two weeks to fix.

"Here you are, miss." The man managing the counter winked at her. "Enjoy. You too, sir," he added, putting down bowls in front of her and Wash.

"'Sir.'" Wash stared reflectively at the man's back as Kaylee dug in with a relish. "Interesting. Hey, would you consider having a word with my wife?" Kaylee smacked him.

"Don't ya want to sleep in your bed tonight? As opposed to elsewhere?"

"Again with the wounding. I just don't want to be mistaken for Mal again. My sense of fashion is so much better than his."

Kaylee closed her eyes blissfully at the rich taste of the mousse. Some sex she'd had ain't even come near to being as good as this. She might've come off a border world, not like no fancy Core lady, but Kaylee knew true chocolate when she tasted it. There was no mistaking it for the cheap protein cocoa mix you could pick up at any market.

Thoughts of Core ladies reminded Kaylee of her newest girlfriend. Only girlfriend, actually—Zoe was real nice, but she sure weren't hair-brushing-and-gossip material. "What do ya reckon 'Nara's doin' right now, Wash?"

"Um, let's think. What does she do for a living?"

Kaylee rolled her eyes. "She ain't havin' sex _now, _silly. Her client was gonna take her to that fancy dance thing. Do ya think they'll have chocolate there?"

"It's hardly a fancy party if there's no chocolate." Wash grinned. "Not that fancy parties are necessarily the best. I remember when Zoe and I..."

Kaylee let him talk while she mentally added up the credits she'd brought with here. _I've got enough to get 'Nara some chocolate too, just in case. _She waved the bartender down. "Can ya wrap up another bowl of this for my friend?"

_"__Dang ran__. _Won't be but a minute."

The door swung open, letting in a small crowd of people. Leading the way was a creamy-skinned, black-haired woman, with what Kaylee was pretty sure was that same new-fangled grenade thing strapped to her belt. Behind her was a skinny, cat-like man, eyes narrowed in the dim light of the bar, and a shorter, stocky man who seemed inclined to twitch. It was late afternoon and most hadn't gotten off from work yet, so Kaylee reckoned these had to be their contacts. Turned out she was right as the woman strode up to the Captain and Zoe and Jayne. Bar was empty enough so she could hear their words, 'spite of them being across the room.

"Malcolm Reynolds?" The woman's eyes skimmed over Jayne before she held out a hand to the Captain. He nodded in confirmation and shook it. "I'm Captain Vashandra Devi. This is Benson." She indicated the shorter, twitchy one. "That's Goldstein." She jerked her head at the cat-like man.

"Good to meet you. My first mate, Zoe, and Jayne." The Captain gestured for the man behind the counter. He passed Kaylee her covered bowl of mousse and went to serve them drinks.

"So I'm given to understand the ship you own is a Firefly," Vashandra Devi stated. "An 03 model?"

"That'd be right."

One of Devi's men, Kaylee thought Benson, snorted a little. Devi whipped her head around to glare at him, and he shrank away. "Sorry, boss. But a Firefly? They're held together by spit and prayers!" Kaylee sat up indignantly, ready to defend her girl if he kept on with that _fei hua._

Devi shook her head. "You're thinking of the 01 model. Use your brain for something besides taking up the space between your ears." She turned back to the Captain. "Good for flying under the radar, those ships. Could be you'll find that useful, if we decide to do business."

"So from what I understand, you want your cargo transported to Beylix," the Captain said. "Care to enlighten us on just what kind of cargo it is?"

"Salvage." Devi accepted her drink from the bartender. "Engine parts, this time around." Kaylee's eyes widened, chocolate temporarily forgotten. "Big Core companies, they never miss a shipment or two."

"No, I reckon they don't." The Captain eyed Devi over his mug. "Here's the thing, though. The payment you offered us on the wave was a mite high. Not complaining, mind, but I can't help thinking maybe you want more than just getting the goods from here to there."

"You'd be correct. Usually, when we liberate a shipment, there's a little fuss on the Cortex, nothing more. But someone's kicking up their heels about this one. No one from the company, mind: people like us. I've had three crews try to break into my warehouse since it came." Devi set her drink down. "My specialty is transport, not the parts themselves. I want your mechanic to have a look at them, see if there's something special about this bunch that we've missed. Hence the higher price. Well, that, and you might run into some trouble on the road."

"Seems fair to me." Captain got to his feet. "Kaylee!" He turned back to Devi. "You want to take us there now?"

**OoOoO**

Kaylee trotted towards the salvage warehouse, surrounded by Zoe and Jayne and the Captain. With her and 'Nara's chocolate safely in the hands of Wash, who'd gone back to Serenity, she was ready to give her full attention to them engine parts.

Benson held the door for them. Devi led the way through a sea of bundles, crates, boxes, and ceiling-high shelves, moving more quick than Kaylee'd have thought anyone could in such a mess. She and her fellow crew members picked their way among the salvage as Devi dragged three crates out from under a lopsided table. "These are the ones that seem to be causing the trouble, Miss—Kaylee, isn't it?" She set to work undoing the locks.

"Uh-huh." Kaylee knelt by the nearest unlocked crate and pried the top off, her eyes lighting up at the parts stacked inside. She picked up the nearest one and examined it. "Oooh, this is from a Capissen-45! I like the 45s. They sure fixed the brand up since they released the 38." She peered in. "Yeah, this whole box is meant for the same ship, I'm bettin.'"

"Just need to know if there's anything wrong with 'em," the Captain advised.

Kaylee looked up. "Might take awhile for me to go through all these."

Devi began hunting through a nearby cupboard. "Goldstein, I know you hid that moonshine from the last job in here. Seeing as you borrowed the coin to buy it from me, I know you won't mind sharing."

_"__Ta ma de__," _Goldstein muttered, not sounding too upset regardless.

The two crews divided the moonshine between them while Kaylee worked on the engines. Jayne pried open one bottle with the handle of his knife, and Benson lounged with his feet on a crate. Goldstein and Devi watched Serenity's crew over their cups like foxes with a dog in their territory, and the captain did the same between gulps. Zoe drank little, other hand resting easily near her gun.

The Capissen-45 bits just 'bout filled up the first crate, enough to keep some ship running for a long while. There was a section of a life-support system, and wiring for a grav thrust in the second crate. Kaylee hummed her approval as she saw that whoever'd packed the box had wrapped the parts up with care. She had no time for anyone careless with machines.

The third crate was lighter than the others, and filled to the top with replacement drive feeds. Kaylee made sure to examine each one, knowing any could contain what they were looking for. At the bottom of the crate were broken sections of a com system. She checked those too.

"So what's the verdict, Miss Kaylee?" Devi inquired. "Anything we should know about?"

Kaylee shook her head. "There's nothin' wrong with these. All just average engine parts."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure as can be."

Zoe glanced over the crates. "Could be those crews think you've got something you don't."

"Or maybe," Captain said quietly, "there ain't nothing wrong with those parts and you know it. Maybe you spun this story to get us here."

Devi raised her eyebrows. "So I have a deadly grudge against people I've never seen before, is that it?"

"Could be someone paid ya to have us ambushed," Jayne growled.

Hands on hips, Devi glared at Jayne. "If I was going to have you ambushed, I'd come up with a better plan than—" Suddenly her gun was out, and a shot cracked the air.

Kaylee screamed, looking wildly from the Captain to Zoe to Jayne, expecting to see one of 'em bleeding, but they were all still standing, and staring at the strange man who'd been sneaking up behind them, and was now writhing on the floor with Devi's bullet in his gut.

The silence lasted half a second, then all Kaylee's crew, plus Benson and Goldstein, had their guns out. Zoe pushed Kaylee under the lopsided table as a woman barreled in through the door, and two more men scrambled through the windows, all with guns firing.

Bullets flew in both directions as Kaylee stared out from under the table, unable to look away. Though the shelves made it more difficult to see, they also gave some cover. The invaders seemed to have realized too late they had two crews to deal with instead of one, and were trying to retreat. The woman and one of the men crashed out the door, the other went down with a shot to his head.

Jayne ran to the door and looked out. "No point in chasin' 'em, Mal. It's dark out there, and there's other buildin's all over they could hide in."

The Captain hadn't put away his gun yet. "Weren't we talking about ambushes?"

"Yes, because I'd shoot my own man if that were the case," Devi said dryly, prodding the body with one booted foot.

_"__Oh, zhe zhen shi ge kuaile de jinzhan..."_Goldstein was examining a graze on his shoulder. "Boss, how do we know they ain't arranged this ambush themselves?"

"Because we wouldn't have had time," Zoe told him. "We landed right before we came to meet you."

"And you were the ones that suggested we come to the warehouse _tonight_," Devi said patiently. "So obviously neither of us did this and it's another set of people trying to steal the goods. Well, I'm not going to keep them here any longer if I can help it." She turned to the Captain. "You going to transport these goods to Beylix, or do I have to find another ship?"

_Captain's sure to take it, _Kaylee thought. _What Badger's offerin' ain't near as good as this. We could keep flyin' for weeks with what she's gonna pay, and be able to get those synchronizers in the bargain._

The Captain considered for a minute, glancing from his crew to the crates to Devi. "No need to find someone else. We'll take 'em."

Devi shook hands with him. "Shiny."

**To be continued. Reviews are helpful and encouraging!**


	9. Mal - Risks

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Translations: **Are below.

Hun dan: Bastard

Jing chang mei yong de: Consistently useless

Zhen dao mei: Just our luck

**Chapter 9: Mal **—** Risks**

**February 2517**

It was looking to be a beautiful day on a beautiful planet, and Malcolm Reynolds was hoping to get the hell away from both as fast as possible. Best they got to Beylix before anyone even realized the crates weren't in Vashandra Devi's warehouse anymore. 'Sides, no point in lingering long enough to let any place become home-like. 'Cause homes lay helpless when the warships came, couldn't get just a little farther out of reach like Serenity could. They twined around your heart, made you determined to hold your own patch of earth even at the cost of everyone's life.

Little Kaylee had different views. "Sure we can't stay just a bit longer, Captain? It's real nice here."

Only his mechanic would call a place where she'd nearly been shot nice. Mal supposed it had to be the chocolate. "You've got a few more minutes while we wait for 'Nara."

"Or we could stay the week," Wash said thoughtfully. "Have a picnic, maybe a gunfight."

Mal rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I hear if you order both you get a discount. Don't you have a ship to fly?"

"I suppose I could find time for that." Wash went towards the stairs. "Are we sure those parts aren't going to do anything unpredictable en route? Dissolve, explode, do some swing dancing?"

"We could sell 'em for more if they started dancin'," Jayne told Wash as the latter climbed toward the bridge.

"What we're being paid now ain't nothing to complain of," Zoe remarked. "Makes me a mite suspicious."

Mal grinned at her. "What's life without risk?"

"An improvement over death?" his first mate responded. Worst part about dying was the never knowing when, the sickness and the pain that dragged it out. Had him thinking sometimes it'd be a mercy to be executed. You'd know exactly when and you could be healthy right 'til the end came.

Kaylee pointed to the horizon. "Look, there's 'Nara's shuttle!"

"So it is. C'mon, Zoe, Jayne, let's get these crates stowed."

"Too bad we ain't captured any of those _hun dans_ last night," Jayne groused as he grabbed a box and carried it to the compartment. "They coulda told us why they was after these parts."

"Maybe." Mal heaved another crate in after the first. "Or maybe someone sent 'em, didn't tell 'em why. Could be the same person sent all those crews Devi talked about."

"If she was telling the truth," Zoe reminded him.

"Didn't have much reason to lie to us. Telling us about trouble makes us less likely to take the job."

"Well, given our rep, she could be pardoned for thinking the more trouble a job is, the more inclined we are to do it."

"Can't deny that."

Wash's voice sounded through the com system. "Inara's docked. We've got a full house, Mal."

"Let's get out of the world, then. Kaylee, close up shop, okay?"

"On it, Captain." Kaylee went to the control panel by the door and punched the appropriate buttons.

Mal stowed the last crate. "Looking to be a right smooth job."

"You know, saying that never works," Zoe said dryly.

"Yeah." Jayne kicked the hatch shut. "Think it might actually make it worse."

"It's like you know me or something." None of them knew him 'cept Zoe. Oh, they knew his habits, could count on him in a pinch, but they didn't know his past and he'd made it clear he didn't want them asking.

The shuttle door opened above and Inara floated out. Kaylee ran up the stairs to greet her. "Hey, 'Nara! How was your thing?"

"It was lovely, thank you, Kaylee." Inara glanced down at the others. "Wash tells me you all had some excitement."

"Oh, just some disreputable folk trying to shoot each other. Far below the Ambassador's notice."

Inara raised her eyebrows. "You do realize it takes longer to train to be a Companion than to amass the necessary credentials to acquire an Ambassador's post?"

"Wouldn't know myself. Never had much education. At my old school they taught us to spell Companion 'W-H-O-R...'"

Kaylee put her hands on her hips. "Captain, why do you and 'Nara have to argue all the time?"

Inara smiled serenely at Kaylee. "We don't. Only when the Captain is being infuriating."

"Mal's being infuriating? It must be a day ending in 'y.'" Wash came out the kitchen door. "We've set a course for Beylix."

"Good. Under the radar?"

"Under the radar."

**OoOoO**

"Where'd Jayne disappear to after he helped us with the crates, sir?" Zoe had encountered Mal in the kitchen.

"He's in his bunk. Don't care to know what he's doing. Where's our mechanic? Messing around in the engine room?"

"She and Inara are having some kind of girl's night in with that beverage Kaylee brews in the engine. Think Wash stole some of it for a celebration."

Mal frowned. "What? Thought your anniversary was next month."

"The official one is. You know my mister, he's got others. I think today was the day he first caught me smiling at one of his jokes."

"I see. Funny to think it's been four years since you two got hitched."

"Yeah." Zoe's mouth quirked. "Four years since you burst into my room as I was getting my wedding dress on and told me if I married him I'd regret it."

Mal shrugged. "Just trying to help."

Zoe shook her head at the memory. "You don't have to worry about Wash and me, sir."

"I know that."

"I ain't sure you do."

"Just didn't want you to get hurt, is all."

Zoe folded her arms. "You know, sir, when you look at Wash and see someone who might hurt me, you ain't seeing clear. Now, sure, we fight, but he'd never raise a hand to anyone he cared about."

Mal stared at the table. "Lucky him." _Wish I could say the same for myself._

Zoe sat across from him. "You didn't mean to hurt anyone."

Trust Zoe to read his mind. "What difference does it make if I meant it or not?" He took a drink. _We looked right in that darkness, it ain't hardly a wonder we came close to becoming it. _"I ain't taking the chance of that happening again."

"Your choice, sir." Zoe got to her feet. "I'm gonna go find my husband. Try not to get too drunk." She left the kitchen.

**OoOoO**

Mal wasn't a man who was scared to kill. That weren't to say he liked it, but, life he lived, he couldn't afford to dwell on every death he'd caused. But he believed control, as much as anything, was the measure of a man. So Mal tried hard not to hate when he killed, to do only what needed to be done. There was just that part of him, the part that'd slowly grown during those months trapped in Serenity Valley. He'd once heard a few of his war comrades, more prone to talking than himself, speak of it as the snare, the rage that took you and made it so you couldn't control what you did, lash out blindly at the first to cross your path.

So though Mal loved his crew, he held them at just a bit of a distance. Because it didn't matter whether it was his history or his nightmares or his heart, giving any of them involved trust, and when you trusted you could be betrayed.

Mayhap that was why he was as close to Serenity as he'd ever been to another person. If an engine went haywire, if a part gave out, it weren't the fault of the soul of the ship. Could be fixed by little Kaylee, some new piece could be found. 'Sides, were he to lash out at Serenity, how much damage could he do? It was the human body that was fragile, could be badly hurt by a punch or a kick or a blow with a weight or a wrench. Mal would lock himself away forever before willingly doing that to a member of his crew. But when he felt the snare in him, he feared he wouldn't have the choice. Only safe thing was to not quite trust anyone, prevent the possibility of betrayal.

Some days, he wondered if he was justified in gathering all these incredible people 'round him, worried he'd spoil their goodness with the snare, if it ever emerged. Wondered if, life he led, he'd be better off alone. But it was his crew as kept him sane, kept him hanging onto that small urge to do right. Mayhap he was selfish, but he couldn't see himself giving that up.

**OoOoO**

"Mal, I think we've got a problem." Wash's voice crackled through the com. "You've got a wave from Captain Devi."

"Hold on, I'll be up to the bridge in a sec." Mal climbed the ladder out of his bunk and hurried up to where Wash was messing with dials, trying to get better reception.

"Here, that's the best I can do." Wash moved away to stand behind Mal.

Devi's irritated face appeared on the screen. "Captain Reynolds. I'll just jump straight into this and say you're not going to like what I have to tell you. If it's any consolation, I'm suffering equally."

"Did you find out what's wrong with them engine parts?"

Devi scowled. "No. But Benson got snatched by people who wanted to know who I'd sent them with, and that _jing chang mei yong de_ idiot went and told them all about how I'd hired you to deliver."

_"__Zhen dao mei__._ So we're gonna have people after us."

"I'm afraid so. Good news is, they want those parts, so they won't blow you up. Of course, if they take your ship, they might just shoot everyone aboard." And he'd go down fighting before he'd let them invade his sanctuary, hurt anyone in it. "And if my gorram shipment doesn't come through, my clients are going to be mad as hell."

Mal glared. "Having a pissed-off client don't really compare with getting my crew killed, Devi."

"Why do you think I'm telling you this? It's not exactly flattering to admit the fool I hired spilled his guts at the threat of a little torture." You didn't get used to torture 'til it burned your nerves away. Until then, it just ate at your brain, new every day you experienced it. "Anyway, you've got a day's head start on them, but I'd go for hard burn until you're further away."

"Right."

"Good luck, Captain Reynolds." Devi ended the wave.

Wash cleared his throat. "Want me to do like she said, go for hard burn?"

"Can we?"

"For awhile. Not all the way to Beylix, but whoever's after us probably can't either."

"Then do that."

Wash went to the com. "Kaylee, need you in the engine room."

"Comin'!" Kaylee's voice came back.

"Is this about your cargo?"

Mal turned around to see Inara standing in the doorway. "Don't see how it's your business."

"Getting shot would be very much my business."

"How long were you listening, anyway?"

Inara ignored him, turning to Wash. "Did you have Kaylee look at the engine parts to see if they might have been particularly valuable?"

Mal cut in, because, after all, it was his gorram ship. "We did. Couldn't find nothing amiss."

"What about the crates? Did you look at those?"

Mal blinked. "The crates?"

"Yes, Mal, the crates. Were there secret compartments?"

"No way, we'd have noticed."

"Not if my theory is correct." Inara turned and swept from the room.

Mal followed. "What'd that be? The theory of me not having eyes?"

**OoOoO**

"Silk?" Jayne sounded as puzzled as Mal felt as they looked at the shimmering folds of cloth Inara held. "Why would folk wanna smuggle silk?"

Zoe pried one side of the second crate apart. "There's more in here. Cloth's thin enough we wouldn't have found it, we weren't looking for it."

"Couldn't people smuggle credits in this kinda thing?" Kaylee asked. "Why the pretties?"

"This particular type of silk is hand-woven and very valuable," Inara explained. "The Companion House on the planet we just left put a bulletin up on the Cortex, saying that some of their goods had been stolen. The timing aroused my suspicion."

"So we're risking our lives over cloth," Mal grumbled. "This just ain't my day." Couldn't understand people who'd trample over blood just so they could boast their clothing was a shred rarer. Be like wearing a haunted dress.

Inara gave a charming smile. "I'm surprised the idea of a reward for the return for this silk hasn't entered your thief's brain yet."

"We gotta live to collect. Kaylee, have you set up the hard burn?"

"It's all shiny, Captain."

"Good. Wash, I want someone tracking for another ship all the time. No point in letting 'em sneak up on us."

**To be continued. Reviews are helpful and encouraging!**


	10. Simon - Confrontation

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Translations: **Are below.

Le-se: Garbage

Go se: Crap

Chu feil wo si le: Over my dead body

Wo de ma he ta de feng kuang de wai sheng dou: Holy Mother of God and all her wacky nephews

Dong ma?: Understand?

**Chapter 10: Simon **—** Confrontation**

**Osiris, February of 2517**

They'd taken away his hands, and that terrified him. Simon had never been a fighter, not physically at least; that wasn't the point. As all his intellect had grown to seem progressively more useless in his search for River, he'd come to rely on his hands for a sense of steadiness, for something he could still depend on. Save for the time he'd collapsed from exhaustion, that night with Joanna, he'd never caught his own fingers shaking. Since then, he'd become obsessed with calming the tremors even at the height of his frustration and fear, because that one skill allowed him to maintain an illusion of control.

Now he could not see his hands. Nor could he move them, not even enough to brush at the tickle of blood running into his palms. Simon chastised himself for not knowing better than to fight the top-of-the-line handcuffs, but the panic when the Feds had grabbed him had been too great to resist. Was it all going to end now, when he was so close? The doctor realized vaguely that he was more frightened for River, abandoned at the Academy with no one to come for her, than he was for himself, even standing in a lineup while his DNA imprint was processed before being thrown into jail.

_They're hurting us. Get me out._

Simon rocked a vein in his lip between his teeth. No. He would get out of here if he had to defy the laws of physics, much less government or morality. He would make that top-three-percent ranking good for more than landing jobs in places sanitized from every hint of moral ambiguity. Perhaps he was going mad. The idea disturbed him less than it should have. The longer he searched, the longer it seemed that his previous cosseted existence had been the dream, and that this—using credits and coin for bribes, dropping drugs in alcohol and smearing them on his own lips, erasing his waves and shutting out the concern in his colleagues' voices—this was real.

"Thieving _le-se__."_ The guard's voice was more bored than malicious. "At least rats have the sense to stay away when there's traps about. I was hoping to get home early tonight. Now—"

"Hey, Officer." The man behind the desk was frowning. "This one's in our database."

"So? Bet you anything half these idiots have prior records. It was a blackout zone, not a beauty salon."

"No, no prior record. Federal listing."

"Details?"

The man behind the desk tapped on his touch-screen. "Oh, hey, a MedAcad license. No previous crimes...works at St. Martin's...Dr. Simon Tam. We should probably wave his folks, tell them what happened."

"I'll do you one better. Tell them if they pay two thousand we'll let him off with a warning. I've got enough files to hunt through as it is."

"Got it. We can grab him out of the holding cell later if we need to."

**OoOoO**

The guard slammed shut the door of the cell. Simon hunched in the corner and hoped the other three men who shared the cramped space would leave him alone. He hadn't seen Geming or Sumner on the way here, for which he was grateful. At least if he got out, there would still be a chance of their being able to help him and River.

"This is your fault," one of the men accused the other. "If you hadn't let them hit you with the rifle, I wouldn't have tripped and—"

"Let? I _let _them shoot me? Next you'll be sayin' I _planned _for us to be there the night of a raid!"

"You're stupid enough," the first man snapped. "Our first job, and we get snatched. And one of the Feds stole all the coin I brought with me tonight. Count on these Alliance dogs to grab everything they can get."

"They do that," the third man grumbled. "Haven't you ever been in jail before?"

The second man opened his mouth, then closed it, and his eyes alighted on Simon. "Maybe we can get it back," he said craftily. "That man looks like he could have something we want."

"I don't—" Simon began, but the first man was already dragging him out of the corner, turning his pockets inside out.

"There's no coin here."

"Of course there isn't," Simon snapped, trying to jerk out of his hold. "The same man who took your money took mine. You should have realized that, you fool."

The man threw him down hard on the floor. Simon felt his head crack against the wall, already cursing himself for losing his temper. "You've got a tongue on you. Maybe I should rip it out." Fear rose in Simon's throat. _I can't do a thing..._

"Hey! Are you straight off the Rim or what?" The third man spoke up. "Expensive Alliance cell, remember? Monitors! They'll punish us all if they catch you fighting."

_"Go-se."_ The man who'd knocked Simon down turned on his partner. "Why didn't you think of that?"

"Why didn't _I _think of that? Why didn't _you _think of that?"

The third man eyed the doctor. "Save it for later. Guards don't much care what happens in prison." He grinned nastily at Simon. "Got no money, hmm? Well, there's other things you can bargain with when you're there."

Simon gritted his teeth. _River. Who's going to help River? If I don't get out of here, she'll be alone..._

There was a click and the door slid open. "You people are nothing but trouble. You deserve to rot." He pulled Simon to his feet by one arm and dragged him out of the cell. "Come on."

The third man sighed. "Too bad. We were having so much fun."

**OoOoO**

"Have you completely lost your mind?"

_Let's see. I've been robbed from and shot at, fainted from exhaustion, lost at least ten pounds, and just came from hearing that the government I trusted is playing with my beloved meimei's brain._ "Pretty nearly."

Simon's father glared at him. "We got the wave at the Friedlich's. I had to leave your mother at the dinner table."

_Do I even know you? _"I'm sorry, Dad. You know I would never have tried to save River's life if I had known there was a dinner partyat risk."

"Don't you dare be flippant with me." Gabriel's voice was low. "I just spent two thousand credits to get you out of here and I had to walk through that door which goes on my permanent profile." He glanced behind him. "Are you _trying _to destroy this family?"

"I didn't realize it would be so easy." It was the wrong thing to say, and Simon realized that instantly. "Dad, I...I didn't doanything."

"You were in a blackout zone—"

"Talking! To someone who might be able to help River. And I'm going right back there." Simon lurched past his father.

Gabriel blocked him before he could go far and led him toward the door. _"__Chu feil wo si le._This is a slippery slope, young man, you have no idea how far down you can go, and you're not taking us with you."

"Meaning what?"

"I won't come for you again. You end up here, or get mixed up in something worse—you're on your own. I will not come for you."

_This isn't happening. I'm your son, River is your daughter. Not toys you play with and throw away when they get broken._

"Now, are you coming home?"

**OoOoO**

Simon stared dully at his parents across the dinner table. "What is it you want from me?"

His mother reached for his hand. "Simon. Don't do this. We've been worried sick about you."

_I wish you'd worry less about me and more about River. _"Are you concerned about me, or how you're going to explain to society that your son is a criminal?"

Regan drew back. "You're not a criminal, Simon!"

"Yes, Mother, I am. I was in a blackout zone. What's more, I've been meeting with smugglers, thieves, and spies on a regular basis for the past two years," Simon spat. "And furthermore, I'm going to continue doing so until—"

"You will do no such thing," Simon's father said coldly. "The conditions of your release, such as they are, will not allow it."

"The conditions of my release?"

"Are in the form of a verbal agreement with an Alliance official, but are no less binding for all that." Gabriel met Simon's eyes. "You are to live in this house, and be under our supervision. We will monitor you for any sign of this madness continuing."

"Live here? What are you talking about? I have my apartment—"

"The lease on which has now been cancelled. In addition, you will agree to see a psychologist—"

"I don't want to see anyone but River!" Simon exploded. "Would you even listen if I told you what I found out tonight? The government you cut deals with is playing with River's brain!"

Regan cut in. "Simon, we want to help you."

"Help River, then. Help me get her out. To somewhere safe. I know we could do it, if we just—"

"I know we could end up in prison, or worse," Gabriel snapped. "That is what I know for certain. You know nothing, only whispers that may not be true."

"Please." Simon took a breath to calm himself. _Tell me I was wrong, tell me you're not going to give up on us._ "Just for once, can't you give us what we need?"

"For once? We've always given you anything you could want!"

"And the one time I ask you for something that really matters, you say no!"

"Gabriel! Simon!" Regan laid her hands on the table. "You're both overexcited. I'm sure if we talk about this in the morning—"

"No," Gabriel said firmly. "We are not going to talk about this in the morning, or at all. It isn't negotiable. Simon, you will stay here until you are fit to leave."

Simon bit his lip and closed his eyes. "Fine. But I'll need my things."

"Very well. We'll retrieve them now. The sooner you are truly at home, the better."

**OoOoO**

Dr. Robina Mahdavi propped her hands on her hips. "Simon Tam, this had better be an emergency. A horrible emergency with a lot of blood."

Simon hefted the bag he'd hastily packed over one shoulder. "Well, there's some blood. Not a lot." He held up his hands.

Mahdavi peered in close. _"__Wo de ma he ta de feng kuang de wai sheng dou!_Are those from handcuffs? I'm guessing you've gotten yourself slightly worse than an indecency charge."

"I have."

Mahdavi sighed. "It's about your sister, isn't it?"

Simon nodded. "May I come in? Just for a minute?"

"You'll do less damage in here than on the street, I suppose." Mahdavi held the door open. "But you have some serious explaining to do." Simon stumbled into the hall. His host shut the door and pointed through to a couch in the next room. "Sit down and start talking, or I'm calling the Feds on you."

Simon sat, dropping his bag down beside him. "I was in a blackout zone, talking to some men who had information about River." He sighed. "I got caught. Dad came to get me out, but..."

"But what?" Mahdavi prompted.

"He and Mother don't believe me about River being in danger. They made a deal with an Alliance official that I'd be under their supervision, until I agree to drop the issue." Simon's voice turned harsh. "I told them what I'd learned, I told them the government was playing with River's brain—"

"Hold on five seconds." Mahdavi held up a hand. "Playing with her brain?"

"Behavioral conditioning, chemical-altering drugs, maybe even surgery. They don't know why, just..." Simon trailed off, then righted himself. "I have to get her out, and I can't do that with two parents and a psychologist watching my every move."

"How did you get away from them?"

"I had my father take me back to my apartment to get my things. He waited outside the door to keep me from leaving. It's on the ground floor, so I climbed out the window." Simon gestured to his bag. "This was all I could bring. And I still have the money in my bank accounts."

"But won't they be after you?"

"I doubt it." Simon smiled bitterly. "They won't want anyone to know I got away from them."

Mahdavi shook her head. "Your parents are fools. So why are you here?"

"I won't stay long. I just don't know where to go; I need a minute to figure it out. And you already know about River's letters, so I thought..."

"You got caught in a blackout zone, talking with traitors, and ran away from your father? No, you didn't think, did you?"

"I'm sorry. I don't want to get you in trouble." Simon stood. "I'll go—"

Mahdavi shoved him back down. "You didn't think about the fact that you just relegated yourself to a sore back from sleeping on my couch."

"You mean I can stay tonight?"

"I'm not letting you out on your own until you can prove your sufficiency at the whole thinking thing." Mahdavi grabbed a blanket off the back of a chair and threw it at him. "If any Feds turn up here, you're going to cover your head with this and let me do the talking, _dong ma?"_

"Yes. Thank you. I mean..." Simon stared at his former teacher blankly. "Why are you...won't I be putting you in danger too?"

"Probably," Mahdavi gave a bleak smile. "But I've visited penal moons for research, and even if you're out of your head, you don't deserve to end up there." Simon nodded, deciding not to push his luck. He also determined not to think about the fact that Mahdavi might be right.

Before this was over, he might truly go insane.

**To be continued. Reviews are helpful and encouraging!**


	11. Inara - Interference

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Translations: **Are below.

Hun dan: Bastard

Ta ma de: Damn it

Ma shang: Right now

**Chapter 11: Inara **—** Interference**

**March 2517**

"Hey, 'Nara!" Kaylee's grinning face appeared from under the engine. "Didja need somethin'?"

Inara smiled down at her friend. "Actually, I was looking for Mal or Zoe. I have to schedule appointments in a few minutes, and I need to know how long we'll be on Beylix."

"Oh, well, I think it'll be a few days at least. Captain said we can buy those synchronizers if the job comes through, and we might have to do a few repairs, especially if we keep on with the hard burn." Kaylee scratched her ear. "Zoe's up on the bridge with Wash. Captain was in a right state the last time I saw him, so ya might wanna try her first."

Inara laughed. "Well, we wouldn't want to infringe on the Captain's right to be in a bad mood. Thank you." She left the engine room, holding her skirts out of the grease, and climbed the stairs to the bridge.

Zoe was leaning against the console, watching her husband attack a Triceratops with a Pterodactyl. "I have horns! You cannot think to thwart my will!" "Haha, I can fly! I have a Ph. D. in will-thwarting!"

Inara stood in the doorway. "I don't mean to interrupt, but, Zoe, do you know how long we'll be on Beylix?"

"Captain's planning on five days," Zoe replied, still watching the dinosaurs battle.

"Ah! You pricked my wing, you three-horned _hun dan__!" _"See? It's not the length of the horns, it's what you do with them!"

"Thank you, Zoe." Inara shook her head as she retreated from the bridge towards her own shuttle. As she neared the kitchen, she heard the sounds of Mal and Jayne arguing.

"—not hearing this again, Jayne."

"But we could make real coin off it, and ya just—"

"If 'Nara's right, we can return that silk to the Companion House, get something for our trouble."

"Not as much as if we sold it ourselves. _Ta ma de__, _Mal—"

"Listen, we know as close to nothing as you can get about who buys that stuff or how much it's worth or whether anyone's likely to come after us for infringing on their market. Ain't worth it."

"Ya just don't want 'Nara to think you're stealin' from other whores like her."

"Leave 'Nara out of it, Jayne. She don't make my decisions for me."

Inara moved away before she could hear any more and crossed to her shuttle, sliding the door shut behind her. The silk coverlet on her bed was mussed, and she automatically moved to straighten it.

"This stuff's real shiny, 'Nara," Kaylee had said last night, flopping on her belly on the bed. "Didja get it from a client?"

Inara smiled softly at the memory. Telling her friend about clients could be better than entertaining the clients themselves, though it truly wasn't fair to compare. One was work, the other was play. Besides, Kaylee never got bored or jaded, and, conversely, never pretended she liked a story when she didn't.

Of course, the coverlet Kaylee had been asking about at that point was one Inara had bought herself, specifically chosen to create the mood she wanted for her place of union. She didn't know she could ever sleep comfortably in that bed, any more than she could entertain clients in her own. It was only healthy, after all, to keep one's work and rest spaces separate.

On a whim, Inara left the coverlet mussed, and went to sit in front of her appointment screen. "Beylix. The city of Thetis. I am available to make appointments."

Mahidol Angchuan was waiting to speak with her at this time, she knew. She tapped on the screen and his face appeared. "Inara. It is wonderful to speak with you again."

Inara curved her lips. "I'm glad to say the feeling is mutual."

"I do hope you will be arriving after the tenth of March. My business affairs will quite occupy me before that, and to miss you would be a tragedy."

"I will be available in a few days," Inara promised, "and will be staying until the fifteenth." She cast her eyes down modestly—Mahidol favored such things, she had heard from other Companions. "I should be glad if we happened to meet in that time..."

**OoOoO**

"...and I'd appreciate it very much if I could, ah, have you come. To my estate. Um, I am available the seventeenth..."

Inara turned off the message the would-be client had left her. An hour of sitting in front of the screen was about all she could do at a time, especially when two of her messages turned out to be advertisements from Beylix Waffle Cone Central. She would be having a word with the Guild about how they had gotten her wave code.

As often happened when she was left to herself, Inara's thoughts drifted towards Mal. Of course, such thoughts were entirely unsuitable. A Companion owed it to each of her clients to give them her full attention, to not be preoccupied by thoughts of other partners. It was part of what separated them from the unlicensed. When a man or woman hired a Companion, they weren't just paying for sex, they were paying for emotional attention. Mal took entirely too much of that attention without even meaning to.

It was funny, considering how disapproving the heads of her profession would be if they knew of her feelings, that she was attracted to Mal partially because she _was _a Companion, because part of a Companion's job was to help clients work out their problems, and that was what had drawn Inara to that profession in the first place. She knew Mal disliked intimacy, and she wanted to help.

Only it was unlikely to endear her to Mal if he knew that part of her attraction to him came because his problems appealed to her talents.

It was a pity she couldn't talk to Kaylee about this. Her friend, for all her seeming lack of guile, had a way of seeing through the trappings to the direct issue. Kaylee's simplicity tugged at her heart as much as Mal's complexity, but with Kaylee, there was no desire to fix anything. In fact, Inara admitted to herself, there was a certain desire to _be _fixed, to pour all her problems in Kaylee's lap and cry on her shoulder. But a Companion's shields were there for a reason, and they couldn't come down just because she had some mad longing to have Kaylee tinker with her as she tinkered with Serenity, making her strong enough to go another day. Inara was strong enough on her own. She had to be.

She heard footsteps outside the door, and Mal strolled into her room without knocking. "I'm sure whatever you had to say is very important and completely justifies your entering my shuttle before I've given you permission."

"Oh, yeah. Real urgent," Mal assures her. "Just hoping you could get in touch with your House, ask 'em if the fancy cloth some idiot stuffed in our engine crates is what they lost."

"That couldn't wait?"

Mal shrugged. "Apparently not."

Inara rolled her eyes. "I will speak with them soon. At the moment, I am making appointments with my clients." She leaned over casually to turn off her screen, and hit the playback button by accident.

"Got a hankering for hazelnut? A longing for lemon? Then drop by Beylix Waffle Cones! Best in the 'verse, by vote of—" Inara swung around and poked her screen, silencing the unctuous voice.

Mal raised his eyebrows. "Right. Clients. Absolutely."

Inara opened her mouth to respond, but her retort was cut off by Zoe's urgent voice through the com. "Captain, we need you on the bridge, _ma shang_. Kaylee, get to the engine room if you're not there already."

Mal was off in a second, Inara hurrying behind him. It took something serious to send Zoe that off-balance.

Jayne, Wash, and Zoe were gathered around the wave screen. "—hold on just a minute," Wash was saying, "he'll be able to talk with you."

"My patience is running low," declared an unfamiliar voice. "You have something of mine that I wish returned."

Mal shouldered his way to the front of the group. "You calling us thieves? 'Cause that just might not be the best way of getting what you want."

"Believe me, Captain, I have absolutely no interest in whether you are a thief or the king of Ariel, unless, of course, either career involves you taking what I want."

"And you're saying that's what's happened now?"

"Precisely."

"Well, why don't you just tell us what it is you think we have, and we'll tell you whether you're right." Inara and Zoe rolled their eyes in unison as Mal grinned at the screen, the picture of a man who just solved all the problems of the 'verse.

"Because I have no reason to believe you would be telling the truth. I'm afraid the only solution is for us to search your vessel."

"The only solution, huh? Pardon, but it's sounding like you're suffering from a severe lack of imagination."

"Oh, really?" The unfamiliar voice was apparently trying to sound threatening. Inara scoffed inwardly. Some people just couldn't skip the posturing.

"There's all kinds of things that could happen instead. First and foremost being, of course, that we just take off before you get here. Think of that?"

"You are annoying, Captain. I may have to blow you out of the sky."

Jayne gave the screen an incredulous look. "Are ya _always _like this?"

"Yeah," Wash added. "Are we supposed to be intimidated or something?"

"You, ahem, 'blow us out of the sky,' and you'll lose whatever it is you want," Mal told the man on the screen. "Way I see it, your best choice is to negotiate."

"I do not negotiate. I am obeyed."

The crew of Serenity exchanged baffled looks. "Not by us, you ain't," Mal finally said.

"If you don't show a little respect—" The screen went blank.

Wash fiddled with the dial. "This isn't a malfunction. He cut the connection."

Zoe turned to Mal. "Sir, do you think we should—"

With a static noise, the wave flashed back into action, and a new voice floated out. "I apologize for my employer. He seems to have bungled things again."

"I have not!" shouted the first man from off-screen. "You know nothing about dealing with their types! Their brain structure has been analyzed as inferior on three Core planets!"

"Only three?" Zoe asked, straight-faced.

"You're disappointing this man here." Wash pointed at Jayne. "He was hoping for seven at least."

"Your amateur psychology has no place in the black," the new voice told the first. "You pay me to handle this kind of thing. Well, let me handle it."

"Modern doctors from various fields have declared that those from the border planets are instinctual followers! If you just act like you're in charge—"

Inara peered over Zoe's shoulder to see the first man trying to wrestle the second away from the screen. After a few moments, the former disappeared and the latter cut the connection.

Kaylee's voice crackled through the com. "Is there, um, anythin' I should be doin'?"

"Not just yet," Mal told her.

"I wonder what he'd make of my dinosaurs," Wash said thoughtfully.

"The triceratops would no doubt require a Freudian analysis," Inara informed him. "As would Jayne's obsession with guns."

"Who's Freud?" Mal demanded.

"A doctor from Earth-That-Was. Mainly a museum piece now, but psychology is part of a Companion's training. If you had more knowledge of it, you might avoid provoking at least three bar fights on any planet we land on."

"Hey. One was Jayne's fault."

The wave screen flashed back into action. "Right." The second man's cheekbone was now red and swollen, but he seemed relatively unfazed. "My employer has been temporarily neutralized."

"Neutralized?" Jayne asked puzzled.

"He knocked him out," Zoe translated.

"I have a proposal for you," said the employer-neutralizer. "I've heard you're shipping out with some Companion. No doubt she can tell you how much the House would pay to have that silk returned. I'm prepared to offer twice that amount."

Mal frowned. "Why?"

"My employer has some aunt whose husband wants it, and he's a bad man to cross. Got quite the reputation for that, in fact. We made an agreement with him, and I'd rather take the loss of coin than not get him what he wants."

"So what's your proposal?"

"We'll send you coordinates for a meeting place. Simple exchange."

"No offense, but we've been ambushed a goodly number of times in our illustrious career," Mal told him.

"So have we, but I'm afraid at this point we have no choice." The employer-neutralizer scowled.

"Then _we _pick the coordinates."

"If you must."

"Right, then. I'll send them along." Mal switched off the screen.

"I don't like it, sir." Zoe looked at her captain. "They gave in too quick."

Inara knew she'd probably regret giving advice, but jumped in anyway. "They may very well have an advantage over us that is so great they don't need to pick their own meeting place."

"Ya just don't wanna give the silk to anyone but your own folk," Jayne declared. "I say we do it."

Mal glanced at Inara, but addressed himself to Zoe. "Whatever job we'd take in place of this could be worse, easy. We ain't trying to sell that gorram cloth on the market, just making a deal with them as can. Think Jayne's got the right of it after all."

Inara moved silently away, back to her shuttle. She should really be glad the job was out of her hands. She knew hardly anything about smuggling or crime of any kind, and had no desire to learn. It would just entangle her further in a dangerous world. Mal's world. Kaylee's world.

But there were times when her own job seemed make-believe, even to her. She was reminded of that when her clients wanted to enact fantasies that they had known each other forever, that she was a lover who had always been there and would continue to be so. Inara knew she was providing an important service to those who, for one reason or another, were not able to find affection elsewhere. But she was always aware that what she did was only a substitute for long-lasting love.

It was times like this Inara wished she was more than just the Ambassador on Serenity. She wished she was crew.

**To be continued. Reviews are helpful and encouraging!**


	12. Wash - Perils

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Translations: **Are below.

Ai ya. Women wanle: We're in big trouble

Gao yang zhong de gu yang: Motherless goats of all motherless goats

Bizui: Shut up

Wo de tian, a: Dear God in heaven

**Chapter 12: Wash **- **Perils**

**March 2517, Beylix**

Wash steered Serenity towards the coordinates on Beylix with care, all while contemplating the benefits of being cheerful. These were many, and worth recording in times of hardship when his fellow crewmates insisted on being all warrior-like and stoic.

Firstly, being cheerful allowed him to weather such phrases as: "Wash! The gorram landing equipment broke, and we're two minutes from being out of fuel!" "Wash! The planet where we stocked up on water had a cholera outbreak!" "Fly faster, Wash! They're Reavers, not ruttin' glass dolls!" "Wash, if you bring up the sheep incident one more time..."

Secondly, being cheerful made Zoe smile. As the one who woke her up from dreams of Serenity Valley, Wash knew how precious those smiles were. He'd promised himself not to take even one of them for granted, not with her always going out on risky deals she might not come back from. He didn't care who called him a clown, if it made his wife happy.

Thirdly, cheerfulness irritated Jayne to no end. Unfortunately, the gun-happy man was not there to be annoyed. He was plastering himself with weapons in the cargo bay, ready for their meeting with the employer-neutralizer who was to buy the silk they'd found in their crates. Inara had taken herself off to service a prominent citizen—or at least Wash assumed he was prominent from the level of incense he'd sniffed on passing the shuttle. If the day went as days on Serenity usually did, cheerfulness would be called for.

"Wash, watch out for the ice when you land," Mal cautioned for the third time. "And be ready to fire us up soon as these folk hand over the coin."

"And, ladies and gentlemen, another trusting soul stripped of its innocence." Wash angled the ship to the left. "I don't know if you've ever heard this, but crime corrupts."

"Thought it was power that corrupted," the Captain retorted.

"Then we ought to be pure as angels. Might want to tell Jayne that he's fit all the guns he can onto the human body."

"Could be that's the proper notion." Mal went to go down the stairs.

"We'll be alright," Zoe said, reading Wash's mind. "Ain't likely to have nothing we can't deal with. And we're here before 'em, so there won't be no nasty traps."

Wash began bringing the ship in for landing. "I'm still going to sit here in suspense and wait for the lovely sound of your clomping boots in the cargo bay."

"Do that." Zoe kissed him and followed Mal off.

Kaylee wandered in just minutes after Wash had brought Serenity down. "Ya reckon they're gonna be fine?" she asked anxiously. "Woulda been safer to take the cloth to 'Nara's people."

"You know Mal. He doesn't worry about whether trouble's going to find him so long as he can yell loud enough to scare it off."

Kaylee giggled. "Well, it'd be real nice to have some extra coin for a change. I hear Beylix grows fresh raspberries! And I know 'Nara has a little extra cream—mayhap she'd be willin' to share."

"Zoe's and my anniversary is in three days," Wash said dreamily. "Not that I'm not ingenious enough to conjure a gourmet dinner out of thin air. But money does tend to help."

"Ya already know what you're gettin' her?"

Wash winked. "I've been planning and plotting and possibly scheming."

Kaylee leaned against the console. "Always did wonder what it'd be like to be married. My folks loved each other, right enough. But ya don't watch your parents too close when you're a kid, 'cause you're thinkin' everyone's like 'em."

Wash nodded. "Makes sense to me. But at least you have the stellar if often shouting example of Zoe and I before you."

"Couldn't think of a better. Can't be easy, bein' married shipside." Kaylee paused. "Sorry, don't mean to pry. Just always been curious."

"No, I get it. Not a whole lot of people around here you can ask."

"Yeah. Jayne and 'Nara ain't exactly the committed types." For a moment, Kaylee looked wistful, then it passed.

"Call the presses," Wash joked. "Jayne and Inara have something in common. You could ask Zoe too, if you want. Just no Mal, please." The last thing he wanted was for anyone else on Serenity to adapt Mal's views on matrimony.

"What's the Captain got against romancin', do ya think?"

"I don't know." Wash found himself curious. Perhaps he'd ask Zoe about it later.

The com mounted on the console crackled into life, and Inara's voice flared out of it. "Serenity, this is Shuttle One, we have a problem."

Wash whirled around. "What is it?"

"It's Mahidol. He's gotten word of your pickup point and he's—"

"Wait, _who?"_

"Mahidol Angchuan, my client! He's with the law here in the city. Someone told him where you'd be to make the exchange, and he's sending a patrol out!"

_"__Ai ya! Women wanle.__" _Wash grabbed the handheld com. "Mal! Zoe! Law's got wind of this!"

It was his wife who answered. "How long 'til they're on us?"

Wash turned toward the mounted com. "How long, Inara?"

"I would say less than a minute, if—"

"We see 'em, Wash," Zoe interrupted, her voice calm. "Some problems on this end. The employer got un-neutralized. He's trying to use his amateur psychology on us again. Only this time with a gun."

"I'm firing it up." Wash handed the com to Kaylee and reached for the controls.

Thirty nerve-wracking seconds later, Mal's voice buzzed through the com. "We're in! Go!"

Wash lifted off smoothly. "Kaylee, I need you in the engine room. We'll have to go for hard burn."

"But we've been goin' hard burn for days, we'll run down the—"

Time for the trademark cheerfulness. "Now, genius mechanic, do you think I believe you can't make it work?"

"Okay, emergency. Got it." Kaylee ran out of the room, almost bumping into Zoe, Mal, and Jayne as they dashed up to the bridge.

"Them neutralizers took off opposite direction than we did," Jayne claimed. "Law can't follow both of us."

Wash would have exclaimed over the fact that Jayne could pronounce the word neutralizer, but decided to save that for later. "Looks like they chose us."

_"Gao yang zhong de gu yang!"_Mal leaned forward. "Hurry, Wash, hurry!"

"If we had a credit for every time you told me to hurry, you'd be saying it a lot more often," Wash said, unfazed. "I'm going to take us out of atmo. We'll come back for Inara. Kaylee, you ready to hit that hard burn?"

"Got it all set up," came Kaylee's voice. "Won't last long, though."

Wash pushed the controls, blasting them out of atmo, and grinned at what he saw ahead. "We won't need long."

"What do ya—hey, watch it!" Jayne grabbed the back of Wash's chair as they narrowly missed an asteroid. "Ya gone off your head?" Wash ignored this, too busy steering through the group of orbiting rocks they'd encountered. "Listen! Listen, you'll get us killed, you'll—"

_"__Bizui,__" _Mal ordered, tense.

Wash whipped around another asteroid, everything concentrated on guiding Serenity through the perilous route he'd deliberately dived into. The ship dove over and under the rocks, hurtling towards the center.

"They're following us, sir," Zoe said to Mal. "Ain't scared off."

Serenity spun, the gravity kicking in just a second on time. All the same, everyone felt the ship jerk and bounce. "Are we hit?" the Captain demanded.

"No," Kaylee's voice called through the com. "My girl's all good."

They were nearly through now, Wash estimated as he jerked at the controls. Serenity swerved and bucked, a rain of gravel rattling against the hull. Now, if no ship parts broke, and they didn't hit anything he couldn't see, and Jayne didn't distract him with his antics, they ought to be just fine. Easy.

"That Fed ship's still behind us," Jayne gritted out, knocking off item number one in Wash's favor. "They're gonna—_oh."_

"What?" Wash didn't take his eyes from his piloting.

"They're hit," Zoe told him. "I don't know if they can—"

Serenity burst out of the asteroid group and shot towards the black. Jayne cheered, and Wash heard his wife let out the breath she'd been holding. Mal clapped Wash on the back. "Those Feds can't follow us, and that's truth. Reckon they'll limp on home alright, but they'll never stay on our trail."

Kaylee's voice sounded through the com. "We gonna go back for 'Nara now?"

"We'll turn around soon," Wash promised. "Just going to take the long way so she doesn't get confused with us disreputable folk."

**OoOoO**

"How long do you think we'll stay on Beylix?"

Zoe turned back from the teapot. "We got to drop off Devi's engine parts. Funny to think that's all we were hired to do in the first place. And since the employer got un-neutralized, we ain't gotten paid for the silk, so I reckon we'll be taking it to the Companion House."

Wash frowned. "So we'll be spending our anniversary here. And it's still cold."

"No naked beaches?" Zoe teased.

"A pity, yes, but I was more thinking along the lines of you not liking snow."

Zoe reached for the box of tea bags. "Won't keep me from enjoying the day."

"But perfection is so common in our lives," Wash explained earnestly. "I fear if I cannot deliver it, you will cast your eyes from me."

"Eyes ain't going nowhere," Zoe reassured him, placing tea bags into the cups and pouring hot water on top of them.

Wash tilted his head to one side. "Mal doesn't like snow either. Is it a war thing? You don't have to talk about it," he added hastily. "Just wondering."

Zoe placed the cups of tea on the table and sat down. "We spent a winter once—we got cold every year, 'course. You'd get a lot of folk with frostbite, some freezing to death." She paused a moment.

"Frostbite and freezing to death sound pretty nasty to me," Wash observed.

"Not saying they weren't. But they don't stand out to me as much as—one time, we touched down in late fall, planning to be out by the time winter rolled around. Locals didn't tell us that there was whiteouts on the way, and that year, they came early. Snow blown so hard and thick you couldn't see your hand before your face."

Wash winced. "I'm guessing with that much ice it was hard to land evacuation vessels?"

"They didn't send any. Were needed elsewhere. Reckon the Captain wouldn't of gone, in any case. Would've sent others first."

"And you'd have stayed with him." Wash tamped down hard on the small flicker of jealousy.

"'Course. Anyway, it got so the standard winter issue wasn't enough. Some of us were lucky and got extra clothes from home—me and the Captain included. But whenever someone'd freeze to death, the others would strip their gear off, use it to keep themselves warm. Couldn't grudge 'em that, but I guess that was what gave Jienson the idea..."

"To do what?" Wash prompted when Zoe didn't go on.

"We woke up one morning to find she'd slit Arden's throat and stolen his clothes. Captain was mad enough to shoot her right there, but we needed every soldier we could spare. Would've been better if he had, though, 'cause then everyone started doing it, killing each other—not just for their gear, for their rations too."

Wash stared. _"__Wo de tian, a._How'd it end?"

"They finally evacuated us, after maybe a third were down, from killing or just plain freezing."

"No wonder you don't like snow."

Zoe shrugged. "I can manage, if I have to."

Wash covered her hand with his. "You don't have to right now. We'll find a nice, warm, inside place to be on our anniversary."

"Like our bunk, husband?"

"Like our bunk."

**To be continued. Reviews are helpful and encouraging!**


	13. Simon - Devil

**Note**

Here's another of those funny canon things. In _Firefly_ Simon doesn't seem to know that the people at the Academy opened up River's brain until he sees it in the neuro-imager in _Ariel._ However, in _Serenity_ Dr. Mathias mentions neural stripping, and the fact that River is psychic, when talking to Simon in the Academy, which supposedly took place before _Ariel_. So I've just decided that, in my inner canon, Simon needs to actually get a look at River's brain through the neuro-imager before he can help, and doesn't tell the crew about her possibly being a psychic because he's afraid they'll get rid of her.

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Translations: **Are below.

Ni men dou shi shagua:Idiots. All of you.

Tian-sha de e-mo: Goddamn monsters

Meimei: Little sister

**Chapter 13: Simon **—** Devil**

**March 2517, Osiris**

"Have you ever watched a person starve to death?" Mahdavi sat beside Simon on her back steps.

"I'm a doctor," Simon pointed out, shaving wood off the carved doll in his hands. "My job is to _keep _people from starving to death."

Mahdavi tapped her fingers on the railing. "I know you've seen gunshot wounds, knife wounds. Do you know what disease does to a population?"

"I know the numbers." Simon worked at the base of the doll with his knife. "I'm aware it's not the same. But why are you asking?"

"Because if someone doesn't warn you, it'll break your heart," Mahdavi said frankly. "I know how you want to fix everything."

Simon frowned. "I know I can't. If you play God, you make a devil, that's what I've always thought."

"Not what I meant. You care too much, Simon, I've noticed that about you. I expect people have told you how risky it'll be to get your sister out. But if you do, and you go to the border planets, you'll find people who are broken beyond repair."

"I've watched people die." Simon chipped harder at the doll. "Much as I hate to say it."

Mahdavi waved this away. "Because there was nothing to be done. When people die out there, it can be for ridiculous reasons. Not enough water, or water that's infected. No equipment for doctors. To hell with that, no doctors."

Simon set down his knife. "That's not right."

"I happen to agree, but it doesn't matter. Our morality can't change their lives."

**OoOoO**

"Here, throw it over here!"

"Don't let him get it!"

"Come on, come on, come on!"

Simon paused by the group of kids playing keep-away outside the compound. He'd wandered by here more than once in his search for the address Geming had given him over the wave, and he was fairly sure he was lost.

"Take it up, take it up there!"

"That's right, go!"

The boy trying to get the ball planted his feet and glared. "You can't go up on the roof! That's not fair."

"Sure it's fair!" The girl who'd scaled the house tossed the ball up and down. "Come up and get it!"

_"Ni men dou shi shagua."_The boy stomped away.

Simon caught up with him. "Excuse me. Ah, would you mind—that is to say, could you tell me—how to get 193 on Jade Street?"

The boy gave him a look. "You're new, aren't you?"

"Um, yes."

The boy rolled his eyes. "193 is there." He pointed at the house the girl was sitting on, which Simon had passed twice.

"Half the numbers are missing and the rest are out of order," offered another kid. "So new folk get lost."

"Well. Thank you." Simon knocked, and had to duck quickly to avoid getting hit by the ball the girl suddenly hurled down to her compatriots.

After a few moments, the door opened, revealing a woman with carelessly braided reddish-blond hair and steady green eyes. "Hello. Come in, we're expecting you."

Uncertain, Simon stepped over the threshold. The woman closed the door with a snap and held out her hand. "Dr. Tam. You can call me Csizmadia. My husband—that would be Sumner, to you—filled me in on your story."

Simon shook her hand, relieved that she'd given him the pseudonym he recognized. "I'm very glad to meet you."

"Hmm." Csizmadia raised her eyebrows. "A criminal like me?"

"You're not the one playing with River's brain." Thinking of that still set Simon's teeth on edge; he didn't know if he'd ever get used to the idea.

"True enough. Come on, we're meeting in here."

She led the way into a kitchen near the back of the house. Simon blinked at the peaceful-looking, sunlit room. Csizmadia looked at him, obviously amused. "I'm guessing you're more used to dark alleys and blackout zones?"

"Now, dear heart, don't confuse the man." Sumner, sitting at a wooden table, waved Simon to a seat. "People don't think of outlaws as having tea on a pleasant afternoon, which makes it safer for us to do so than meet in a, shall we say, more traditional locale."

Geming, seated across from him, snorted quietly. "Ya just like tea. Let's get to it."

Simon sat down, feeling nervous. He wasn't sure he completely trusted Geming and Sumner, and Csizmadia he'd never seen before. It didn't help that they were all carrying guns—hidden from sight, but Simon had learned to spot such things.

Csizmadia took a chair herself, resting her elbows on the table. "Alright, Dr. Tam. First things first. We know the location of the Academy. It's on a small moon off Liann Juin."

Simon nodded, trying to tamp down his eagerness. "How is their security?"

"As tight as ya can get without keepin' the air out," Geming informed him. "Think it's fair to tell ya, doctor, we ain't done this exact thing before. Prison escape's a Sunday picnic in comparison. I should know."

"What we really need is blueprints." Sumner tapped his fingers on the table. "Unfortunately, they are not available."

"I can pay—" Simon began.

Sumner waved him off. "No one is even trying to sell them. I have searched most dedicatedly."

"Then what are we going to do?" Simon tried to keep panic out of his voice. If these people couldn't help him, he didn't know what he'd do. He hardly had the money pay them, much less find anyone else.

"It's possible we can get them from Swallowtail," Csizmadia said. "If she even decides to show up."

"Who is this Swallowtail?" Simon asked cautiously. "How do we know we can trust her?"

"We don't," the three replied in unison.

"Ya see why it's so risky," Geming explained. "Whole thing could fall apart at the last minute if she informs."

"Still, the basic structure of our plan can be decided upon," Sumner said. "Inside people, or outside people."

"I'm afraid I don't know—" Simon began, embarrassed.

Csizmadia took over. "See, with this kind of thing—a heist, if you will—there are two choices. One is, you can pay the people inside the institution to sneak what you want out. Two is, you can just go in yourself and get it, paying the people who are likely to spot you along the way."

"Which is the best?"

Sumner laughed grimly. "If it were that simply, we would not be having this discussion. The first way is less risky for you personally. It is expensive, but your safety is more assured. On the other hand, it is not as likely to work. There is a good chance they will take your money and vanish."

"And that's in addition to the coin you will have to pay _us." _Csizmadia's mouth quirked. "Pulling the wool over Alliance eyes does give some satisfaction, but our work costs coin. Call it a consultant's fee."

"What about the second option?" Simon asked. "The one where you go in yourself and get it?"

"Daredevil option," Geming pronounced. "Ya get caught, ya get maximum security or the wrong end of a gun. But the whole game's in your hands. Ya can make sure ya get what you're after, instead of endin' up with an empty cryo box."

"Cryo box?" Simon wished fervently he wasn't so out of his depth.

"How else are you planning to smuggle your sister off the Core?" Csizmadia asked. "Disguise won't do. From what we've heard, her mind's going to be in pretty poor shape. You can't trust her not to give you both away."

_I used to trust River with everything. _"And I suppose you can't try again if you take the first option and people let you down."

"Impossible," Geming agreed. "Folk get their wind up, and ya probably don't have the coin for it anyhow."

"Then the second option. If we can." Simon took a breath. "And when you say coin..."

Sumner looked at him. "Probably everything you have. It's your choice, but if you want to get your sister back, you'll come out poor."

"I'm not giving up," Simon said firmly. "No matter what it takes."

There was a timid knock on the door. Csizmadia got up. "I'll signal. Dr. Tam, if Sumner and Geming take off, go with them." She vanished into the hall. Simon noticed both men resting hands on their guns.

"We'd have given you a pseudonym," Geming said, "but it's no use for her, she's a supervising scientist at the Academy and she's got your River's records. She's knowin' who ya are. When ya talk with others, you'll get one."

A few moments later, a brown-eyed woman with dark, curly hair appeared around the corner, following Csizmadia. She looked exhausted and shaken, though Simon expected that after two years of constant searching and turmoil, he looked little better.

"I hacked the Academy database again before this meeting," Csizmadia announced. "Still not much, but a list of instructors, at least." She tossed an ident card to Sumner. "This matches up. Check for forgery marks, please."

Simon stared at Csizmadia. "You hacked the Academy database? Again? I couldn't even _find _the Academy database."

"It's my job. Is it genuine?"

"As far as I can tell, darling," Sumner replied. Simon peered over at the ident card. Dr. Katsumi Warder, it read, and contained almost no other information.

Geming sat forward in his chair. "So. Swallowtail."

"There's no need to call me that anymore, now that you know my name," Swallowtail said quietly. "Katsumi will be fine."

"Not Dr. Warder?" Simon asked, curious.

Katsumi stared at her hands. "I'm afraid I've violated enough of the Hippocratic Oath to be denied the title."

"Kindly tell Dr. Tam what you know of his sister," Sumner said. "He has been searching for quite some time."

"River..." Katsumi looked pleadingly at Simon. "Dr. Mathias came to me early on and asked for my help. You have to understand, I thought my work would enhance her natural intuitive abilities. There was supposed to be proper therapy after the...I set limits, parameters...I put care into the operating model, I would never have imagined..."

"Ya ain't bein' that clear," Geming pointed out.

"No. No, I suppose not." Katsumi pressed her eyes shut for a moment. "Dr. Mathias was in charge of the project. He...he wanted me to come up with a model for neural stripping..."

Simon cut her off, terrified. "Neural stripping? What happened? What was the accident?"

Katsumi looked miserable. "There was no accident."

"But why would anyone do neural stripping if the brain wasn't injured?"

"To play God," Csizmadia said shortly.

"It was supposed to be a simple surgery," Katsumi insisted. "Just to make River more intuitive." Her voice rose angrily. "It _would _have been a simple surgery if they'd kept with mine alone. But they combined it. I don't know how, but according to them...they made her a psychic."

Geming broke the stunned silence. "Ya really think they could do somethin' like that?"

"I don't know. That's what the files say. I dug them out when I got suspicious..." Katsumi trailed off, then tried to recover. "Whether it's true or not...I did counseling with River before the surgery. She was so wonderful, so bright, so sweet...They wouldn't let me in to see her afterwards, but I saw a recording. She was screaming, she was tied down..."

Simon lost it. _"__Tian-sha de e-mo__, _all of you! She's seventeen!" Memories of River hit him hard. "She was excited to go, she wanted to learn, so much! How dare you take her life and play with it! How dare you let them hurt her!"

"I didn't have a choice!" Katsumi cried. "Do you know what they'd have done to me if I'd said no?"

"I don't care what they'd have done to you!" Simon hissed. "She's my _meimei!_Not a toy, not a tool, and certainly not a playground for your _simple surgeries!" _

Sumner shook his head, mouth tight. "Were I to live two lifetimes, I could never understand such sadism."

Tears leaked from Katsumi's eyes. "I don't know why I didn't think. It seems so obvious now. But I wanted to help. I wanted her out of there. But until Csizmadia contacted me, I didn't know where she could go."

"Well, now ya know." Geming took her in. "Can ya get us blueprints, mayhap?"

"I can get you more than that," Katsumi said, wiping her eyes. "But there's something you should know, Dr. Tam. The files I dug out also gave some indications that River was embedded with behavioral conditioning."

"To do what?" Simon almost regretted asking; he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

Katsumi shook her head. "I don't know. They could just have been trying to keep her from resisting the psychological methods. That's the most likely explanation."

Csizmadia frowned. "What's the unlikely one?"

Katsumi choked on her words; it was Sumner who answered. "She could be psychic. They'd want to keep a spy docile." Simon's fists clenched.

"Either way, you should all know..." Katsumi cleared her throat. "There's a...well, it was marked 'emergency safe-word.' I believe it's supposed to neutralize her, though I'm not sure how. But you should know it, Dr. Tam."

"But if you aren't sure how—it could kill her!"

"Listen," Csizmadia broke in. "What if _she _was going to kill someone? Wouldn't you want to be able to stop her?"

"River would never hurt anyone."

"Ya don't know that," Geming said without pity. "Ya ain't seen her in three years."

"If you want us to help you," Sumner said, "you had best learn this safe-word and promise to use it if you must."

Simon would have promised anything at that point. "Alright. What is it?"

"Eta Kooram Nah Smech. The files marked it as Russian, from Earth-That-Was."

"Eta Kooram Nah Smech. I'll remember." Simon desperately wanted to dismiss the warnings of the others, but he couldn't quite forget his own words to Mahdavi.

_If you play God, you make a devil._

**Notes**

Another fun pseudonym: Malka Csizmadia was a Hungarian who helped rescue Jews during the Holocaust.

Liann Juin, according to online sources, is a central planet. I thought it would make sense to have the Academy at least near the Core, and I can't find anything more specific about the location.

Eta Kooram Nah Smech, as some of you may know, literally means "That's for hens to laugh at."

**To be continued. Reviews are helpful and encouraging!**


	14. Zoe - Anniversary

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Translations: **Are in mouseover. Also below.

Ta ma de: Damn it

Baobei: Sweetheart

Jing cai: Brilliant

**Chapter 14: Zoe - Anniversary**

**March 2517, Beylix**

Zoe, folded in on herself to keep warm, watched Kaylee skip through the delicately falling snow, pink knitted hat askew on her head. "C'mon, everyone, what're ya waitin' for? It's shiny out!"

"And cold," Inara laughed, stepping off Serenity. Zoe noted with amusement that Inara, bundled up in at least three layers of sweaters and coats, still managed to look more elegant than the rest of them combined. "I should have brought another scarf."

Kaylee dropped down to the ground and swished her arms back and forth, making a snow angel. "Never had much snow at home. I remember the first time I saw it. Thought the sky was fallin' in little bits!"

Mal was still on the ship, having refused to "put up with that fooling when there's work to be done." Zoe was fairly sure that he was actually just moving their now-silk-less crates of equipment from one side of the cargo bay to the other, but she sympathized. War had left neither of them fond of snow. The only thing that attracted Zoe outside now was their mechanic's obvious delight in it.

"Kaylee, look at that!" Jayne shouted to her.

"What? Where?" Kaylee jumped to her feet, and got Jayne's snowball right in her face. "I'm gonna get ya for that!" she finally gasped, spitting out bits of snow.

"Ya can try!" Jayne took off in the other direction, only to yelp as Inara shoved a handful of snow down his collar.

Wash came thumping down the ramp, wearing possibly the strangest hat Zoe had ever seen. She wasn't sure what it was supposed to be, but was fairly sure it had eyes. "Care to join in?" he offered softly.

Zoe shook her head. "Don't think so."

"Want me to stay?"

"Nah, go have fun."

Wash hugged her around the shoulders. "I'll be back." He dashed off Serenity, whacking Jayne on the back with a snowball of his own before long.

"Hey!" Jayne yelled. "Three against one ain't fair!"

"Are you calling a truce?" Inara inquired, a snowball in each hand.

"Ya mean am I backin' down? Not a chance!" Jayne tackled Wash, but found himself attacked by Kaylee from the other side.

"Gorram snow." Zoe turned to see Mal behind her. "Got no notion why they're so fond of it."

"Think they've got no notion why we hate it so. Well, 'cept for Wash."

Mal frowned. "How would he know?"

"'Cause I told him, 'course."

"Why'd you do a thing like that?"

Zoe raised her eyebrows. Some days she wondered whether Mal was _trying _to forget what it were like to trust another person. "We're married."

"And you don't worry 'bout it driving you out of your mind as you tell it?" Mal kicked some snow off the ship's ramp.

"Going back and talking about it ain't the same as living it again, if that's what you're saying." Zoe peered at him. "Mayhap if you did it yourself, you'd get that."

"Don't need no one seeing what madness looks like, thanks. Don't need no one knowing what else I had to do, back in those months afore we got out."

"Keep telling you, sir, it weren't your fault. You blame the Alliance for everything else, why not blame that on 'em too?"

Mal shook his head. "We did that to ourselves. No way 'round it. Mayhap the snow story, that's decent to tell. But that ain't Serenity Valley."

"It ain't something you can just tell anyone. All I'm saying is, Wash is my husband, and if you had someone like him, you might feel the urge to talk it out too."

"Can't even imagine the kind of person who'd not turn on me if I mentioned that. Have to be too loyal for their own good, that's all I got to say. Going to go move those crates."

"You've moved 'em twice already."

"Keeps me warmed up. You should try it." Mal disappeared back into Serenity.

"That's it!" Jayne flopped down on the snow. "Y'all got me beat."

"Aw." Kaylee reached out to give him a hand up, and promptly found herself whacked right in the chest with a snowball. "Hey! Cheater!"

"Takes more'n that to get me down," Jayne laughed, jumping up. "Worn out yet?"

Inara, who'd been sneaking up behind him, rammed a load of snow up the back of his shirt just as Wash hit him full in the face. Jayne yowled. _"Ta ma de!"_He shook the snow out of his eyes. "Mal needs help with them crates," he announced, and marched up the ramp. He went right past the captain and headed for his bunk.

"Serves ya right!" Kaylee called after him.

Wash chuckled. "Let him exit the field with dignity."

Inara gestured to the sky. "That may be your contact."

Sure enough, they could all see a shuttle flying up from the horizon, growing larger by the second. "Probably." Zoe nodded. "Sir?" She craned her neck to see Mal. "Time to unload those crates for real."

"And of course Jayne ain't here," Mal grumbled. "Thanks to his exiting the field with dignity and all. Wash, better get up to the bridge in case we have to make a quick getaway."

"Sounds like a plan, since you could set the clock by our need for quick getaways." Wash pulled off his hat-with-eyes and climbed the stairs.

Kaylee grabbed a crate. "I'll help ya move these, Captain, since Jayne ain't here."

"Alright, but you'd best take yourself elsewhere when the time comes for getting paid, 'case there's bullets flying."

Zoe, Kaylee, and Mal quickly moved the crates off Serenity, finishing just as Jayne came back, minus snow and plus guns. "Wouldn't want y'all to get in trouble 'cause I weren't here."

"'Course you wouldn't," Zoe agreed. "Also wouldn't want to lose out on your share of the coin."

"Well, would you?"

Kaylee trotted up the stairs, where Inara was shedding her numerous layers of clothing. "C'mon, 'Nara! Let's go to your shuttle like ya said."

"Yes, let's." Inara grabbed two sweaters off the floor where she'd dropped them. "I'll tell you about that dance I went to on Sihnon a year or so ago."

"Now, this go right, all we gotta do is deliver them fancy goods to 'Nara's Companion House, and it'll be smooth sailin'," Jayne declared. "'Til the next time someone decides to shoot us, anyways."

Mal checked the sky for the shuttle, which was growing closer quick. "Thought you weren't right pleased about bringing those goods to 'Nara's folks."

"That was afore we near got killed tryin' to sell 'em elsewhere. 'Sides, there's advantages to droppin' by a whorehouse."

"Companions are far too expensive for you," Zoe pointed out. "Don't count on the rest of us chipping in so you can have one crazy night."

"I can look, can't I?"

"Contact's here," Mal interrupted. "Best get ready."

The shuttle landed not far from Serenity, and a brown-haired man climbed out. Zoe would have bet he were shorter than Kaylee, but his muscles rivaled Jayne's. Plus, he had a man and woman behind him by no means challenged in the height department, and with no lack of weapons.

"I'm Jonathan Neng." The man strode up to Mal. "You must be Captain Reynolds."

"That's me. First mate, Zoe, and Jayne."

Jonathan Neng made no move to introduce his own crew. "Captain Devi waved me about the trouble you had along the way. Seems you've got some skill at ducking the law."

"We like to think so."

"We've got a few boxes of our own we'd like transported to a contact named Susanna Muhangi. Since you did such a good job with these, we'd thought we'd go to you first. Most convenient for us, anyway."

"What's in these boxes?" Mal asked warily. "More engine parts?"

"No. Bullets."

Zoe kept her face blank, though she would've liked to warn Mal away from the deal. No way they wouldn't lose the ship if they got caught carrying that level of ammunition as Independence veterans. Was true they didn't have a job lined up after delivering the silk, but some things just weren't worth the risk.

"Where do you want 'em delivered?" Mal asked. "And how much you thinking of paying us?"

"Persephone. What you got for this job."

That aroused Zoe's instincts. They'd gotten paid more for the engine-salvage job and had no end of trouble over it. There wasn't reason for Neng to offer the same just for a trip to Persephone unless he hadn't been able to get anyone else to take it for less.

Mal, unfortunately, could not read her mind. "It's a risk. But it sounds like we can do business."

For once the crew got a touch of good luck to make up for the stack of bad that had been thrown their way of late. Neng and his bristling-with-weapons compatriots didn't even kick up a fuss over the engine parts, much less pull out their guns, and the exchange went without a hitch. Soon Serenity's clients had flown off in their shuttle, and the ship itself broke atmo with Wash at the helm.

Zoe cornered Mal as soon as they'd stowed the crates. "Sir, why'd you take that job? Bullets, they just ain't—"

"Look, Zoe. We got no prospect of a job but for the one Badger offered us, and we both know what he wants ain't exactly on the happy side of dangerous. This is a guarantee at least."

"It ain't a guarantee. We don't know a thing about Neng _or_ this Susanna Muhangi."

"Well, we do know something about Badger, and that something is that he's slimy enough to make a swamp look clean. It's too late to go back on it anyhow, so we might as well make the best of it."

"Alright." Zoe shook her head. "Hope it all goes smooth."

Jayne snorted. "Yeah. Hopin'; that's worked out so well in the past for us."

**OoOoO**

"What glorious god has made this miracle?" Wash exclaimed. "We've had the kitchen to ourselves for the whole dinner. Are we sure Jayne isn't hiding in some cupboard?"

"Wouldn't put it past him." Zoe plucked up the last bit of protein with her chopsticks. There hadn't been time to buy anything decent on Beylix. "But Kaylee's promised she'll give his guns a looking-over if he leaves us alone for tonight, and you know that man would sell his soul to keep his weapons in working order."

"He probably already has," Wash remarked. "It would explain his lack of one. But I'm glad she and Inara are scheming to let us have a for-once-private anniversary."

"What's Inara done?"

"Threatened Mal. Apparently she's got quite the list of clients eager for her attentions, and she's implied that if he doesn't leave us alone, she'll keep us on Persephone an extra week. As much as our beloved captain likes a good fight with our beloved Ambassador, I don't think he wanted to argue that one."

Zoe reached under the table and pulled out a wrapped box to hand to him. "Happy anniversary. Ain't much, but I hope you like it."

"I'll love it," Wash promised, pulling off the paper. "Ooh, what's this?" He held up the new plastic dinosaur. "I like the club tail."

"It's an Ankylosaurus, according to the kid I bought it from. He said, and I quote: 'The armor was totally shiny 'cause then the T-Rex choked on it.'"

_"__Baobei_, are you trying to kill my T-Rex?"

Zoe chuckled. "Think I've got a right to attempt it. That Stegosaurus I gave you last time is doomed to death; I'm just trying to get one of my gifts to survive."

"Who says the Stegosaurus is doomed to death?"

"I guessed it when you informed me that its brain is the size of a golf ball. Not sure what golf is, but I'm guessing from how you said it that the ball ain't that big. 'Specially since it follows the T-Rex around all the time."

Wash grinned. "You're right. Betrayal from that end will be sudden but inevitable. Why was a kid selling his plastic dinosaurs?"

"Think his folks were pretty hard off and he got it into his head to help somehow."

"Let me guess. You paid him four times what anyone else would have."

"He mentioned his family just needed twenty more credits to cover the rent for the year. Could hardly say no." Zoe shook her head. "I told him you were liable to take excellent care of it."

"Oh, I will, don't worry." Wash placed the dinosaur on the table with care, and pulled out a peculiarly shaped package. "This is for you. Careful to keep it right side up."

Zoe gingerly took the package and eased the paper off. It was a bottle partially filled with earth. Green vines had sprouted, curling wildly into a cloud of leaves, all visible through the glass. "That's...beautiful. Is it alive?"

Wash beamed. "Yes. They're spiderworts. Gardens in a bottle, they call those. And you know the new chargers they give you, so you can grow small plants in the black? I got you one of those too."

_"Jing cai."_Zoe held the bottle up to the light, to see it better. "How often do I water it?"

"That's the best part. You don't have to. It's a self-containing ecosystem. It gets watered once. The light from the charger will make the water evaporate, and then it 'rains' back down on the plants. They drink it, and the whole thing starts again. Or at least, so I'm told by those who make them. We'll have to watch it and see what happens."

"It's lovely. How did you get the idea?"

"You hate winter, and we'll always have to land on icy planets sometimes," Wash said. "I thought if you had a living plant around, that might help."

Tough as Zoe knew she had to be, basking in the glow of her husband's affections certainly had its merits. She leaned over and kissed him, then raised her voice. "If anyone's listening—and it'll be a miracle if none of you are—we'll be in our bunk."

**Note**

Gardens-in-a-bottle really exist. A man named David Latimer has one at the moment that he hasn't watered in years. If we can do that now, by the time _Firefly_ begins they may very well be available as gifts.

**To be continued. Reviews are helpful and encouraging!**


	15. River - Pearls

**THIS CHAPTER HAS MAJOR BDM SPOILERS**

**Note**

To remind my readers: The phrases in italics are taken from the words spoken on the Miranda recording, and thirty million people died on said planet. There are four Shakespeare quotes/references in this chapter. You may recognize some of them, keep your eyes open.

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Chapter 15: River **—** Pearls**

It's all fine; all fun and games and jokes. Humor is a social construct. A man walks into a bar and puts a needle between her eyes. A woman walks into a bar and puts an ax in her hand. A Reaver walks into a bar and rapes and eats and kills.

Simon tried to tell jokes to girls, but he always said the punch line too early. Simon, slowly dropping everything, leaving it behind for her, for her, the shilling in the plum pudding that breaks your teeth anyway. Will he drop the pretty dolls he makes, drop the beauty too?

"River's quite fascinating, I think you'll find." Dr. Mathias—angel-maker he calls himself, quietly where no one hears. In the crannies of his brain. "We've done a great deal of work with her—"

And then it came.

Dollhouses. All very safe. Toothpick fences, cardboard shingles, potholders for rugs. Dolls waiting for someone to play with them, all hunched over. So many dolls, a thousand, a million, thirty million—

_It isn't what we thought._

Too many dolls. Simon gave his dolls away to the people who cried. This little child was selfish. Kept them all. The dolls would never stand up, would never walk again. Dolls with rotten skin, teeth sprawling out of their mouths, skulls you could see—

Not dolls. Thirty million not-dolls—

What were we fighting for, what were we fighting for, what were we fighting for, what were we fighting for, courting death, marrying death, sex in the dark with death, waking up beside death, once you've been there you never leave—

_There's been no war here, no terraforming event._

It was their brave new world, their darling child, the one who would grow up to be Christ and save the world from sin. Their darling child, now an empty cradle. When the child cried, they picked it up and strangled it. They didn't sing a lullaby first. They could at least have sung a lullaby first. Hush little baby, don't say a word, Mama's going to buy you a mockingbird. If that mockingbird should fly, Mama's going to buy you a Firefly. If that ship has got no crew, Mama's going to buy you the Hands of Blue. No, that was wrong, it couldn't be quantified—

_The environment is stable._

Simon, hurry. We must isolate the biological basis for empathy. Is others' pain our pain? Is others' grief our grief? Some mirrors would rather crack than show a face not their own. Simon, please hurry. You are a window. You see your face in the glass, but you see a world beyond you too.

Better to be whole than broken, they say. Broken ships leave you stranded and you run out of air. Broken IVs cut off the blood, the life-giving salty blood. Broken coms cut you off from the ones you love. Broken fires won't burn. Broken knives can't cut. Broken guns won't fire. To be broken is a mercy—

_It was supposed to calm the population, weed out aggression._

They promised her she could dance. They did not lie. They let her dance. But they ripped it out. Now she can't tell the difference between dancing and war. Pirouette, arabesque, waltz, cabriole, grand plié, pas de deux, they could be anything, could mean anything, just six more words for death.

_Well, it works._

Ballet dancers, swing dancers, tap dancers. Tapping shoes, tap, tap. Each tap makes her think of a gun cocking. Each tick of the clock, each snap of a finger, each clink of a glass on a table. Tap, tap, tap. The gun goes off.

_They stopped fighting. And then..._

"Another day. Well, any work is good work." "It's your first job, honey, I'm so proud of you." "Boss is going crazy on me, I don't know why I don't strangle him." "I've been waiting for this promotion for so long." "Can't get fired again, have to put Kelly through school." "Get out of bed this instant, young man, and put your suit on, you have an interview!" "I'd call in sick today, but there's those files..." "I'd quit, but they need me." "Eight hour day? Ha! That's a joke."

_They stopped._

"Isn't worth it anymore." "I'm so tired." "He's crazy...I guess..." "Why did I think that promotion was so important?" "Why should I care if he fires me?" "You got hired where?" "Think I will call in sick." "They don't really need me." "Eight...seven...six..."

_Stopped going to work. And then..._

"I've been thinking about what you said—and I want kids too!" "Let me kiss you." "Let me touch you." "I saw you flirting with my wife!" "We met in the line to get new ident cards; you never know." "What do you mean, we just aren't working?" "When you say we should get dinner, do you mean—?" "If you don't shape up, I'll kick you out of this house before you can sneeze." "We have to go to the hospital, my labor is starting!" "Please, I need you now!"

_They stopped._

"Kids just aren't worth the trouble." "I'm not up to it tonight." "Your skin is so cold." "Fine, flirt. I don't care." "Did you say something?" "It's okay, if it doesn't work it doesn't work." "Sex is exhausting now." "Live here, live anywhere, it's all the same to me." "Stillborn, does it matter?" "Alright, I'm done, now can we sleep?"

_Stopped breeding. And then..._

"Hey, I'm really looking forward to seeing you!" "Listen to me, young woman!" "I just want to make sure you know how much you mean to me." "Grandmother, can you tell us a story?" "Wave me and we'll have a chat." "Your Honor, I would like to speak in defense of my client on this point." "It was beautiful, I'll tell you all about it." "Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, step right up to hear the band!" "Would it help you to talk about it?"

_They stopped._

Silence.

_Stopped talking. And then..._

Apples. Chicken on Sundays. Potatoes from the garden. Packaged protein—green. Cheese, from the outdoor market. Strawberries. Rice. Carrots. Packaged protein—brown. Waffles with syrup. Corn. Beef on holidays. Pickles, homemade. Packaged protein—red. Fresh bread. Fresh milk. Cheap cocoa-mix chocolate. Oranges from off-world. Sweet and sour soup. Eggs. Water.

_They stopped._

Apples rotting. Chickens running wild. Potatoes sprouting. Protein packs unopened. Cheese getting spots. Strawberries unpicked. Rice fields flooded. Carrots never dug. Corn turning black. Pickles still in brine. Bread with green mold. Milk turning sour. Cocoa mix never bought. Oranges never ordered. Soup grown cold. Eggs gone rotten. Water contaminated.

_Stopped eating._

Remember the pretty girl excited for her new ballet slippers, remember the old man who did his duty for the state all his life, remember the dog that ran and barked at strangers, remember the mother who carried her baby on her back, remember the soldiers who wrote their sweethearts every day, remember the man who was trying to quit the bottle, remember the woman who judged a thousand cases, each one fairly—

_About ten percent of the population had the opposite reaction to the PAX_

Rage. Everyone balances it on their head, their own small cup of acid. It falls off and it stings and it bites, but it's just a cup, a little cup. But you carry a gallon of rage, far, far too much. It will burn you and burn you and burn you until you die. You do not want to kill, so you turn your knife on yourself. But if you do not die at once, you will turn your knives on others.

_Aggressor response increased_

Why should you bear this alone? Why should everyone else not suffer as much as you do, with your acid rage eating your bones? Put them through the circles of fire and ice, all the pain you can think of with your mad mind. Always leave one living, one not allowed to look away, who will pass the rage on.

_Beyond madness_

Scientists must begin with hypotheses. Ideas skip through the mind, in again, out again, and you have to grip with feet and claws to make one real. She knows how many ideas get dropped between sleeping and wake now, she counted all the ones from the patients in her vicinity last night. One thousand three hundred and sixty-four. Approximately. Must allow for error.

Must allow for error. Error costs lives. Lives that we rip and fight and bleed and feed and nourish, gone in a moment. Even one pearl is precious to the poor, but the rich can waste a million of them without cost. Thirty million pearls.

_We meant it for the best—to make people safer_

"What's wrong with her?"

"I thought she was better today!"

"Get me a soother—"

"No!" River wailed. "No, don't make me sleep, I don't want to sleep—for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause—"

Dr. Mathias caught her arms. "River, calm down. You're fine, you're—"

"Aye, but to die and go we know not where—to bathe in fiery floods, or to reside in thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice, to be imprisoned in the viewless winds, and blown with restless violence round about the pendent world—"

"River, be quiet!"

River thrashed. "No! Let all our trumpets speak! Give them breath, those clamorous harbingers of blood and death!"

"Here's the soother—"

As the needle plunged into her arm, one last word leaped into River's mind.

_Miranda._

**To be continued. Reviews are helpful and encouraging!**


	16. Simon - Ordeal

**Note**

Reference is made in this chapter to River drawing matryoshka dolls. We see her doing this in the episode _Ariel, _near the end. The pseudonym in this chapter is a tip of the hat to Frederick Douglas, the United States abolitionist.

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Translations: **Are below.

Ai ya. Tian a: Merciless hell

Meimei: Little sister

Fei hua: Nonsense/Crap talk

**Chapter 16: Simon — Ordeal**

**April 2517, Osiris**

"You wouldn't do well in prison," Dr. Mahdavi said, pouring herself more juice. "I don't think you realize that properly."

Simon looked up from his plate. "I didn't think prison was particularly kind to anyone."

"You can't win in a fight," Mahdavi said bluntly. "Not your fault, you've never been taught, and it'd be nice if you never had to learn. But if you keep this up, this hunt for your sister, chances are nine to one you'll get a record, and then it won't matter how much money you have. You'll have to fight to survive."

Simon forced himself to take another bite of rice. He couldn't afford to collapse again. "If I have to learn to fight, that's what I'll do."

"People learn to fight by losing, and what safe place do you have to do that?" Mahdavi set down her chopsticks. "I've done studies on disease on penal moons, and it's not hard to tell that if you lose a fight there, whoever wins can do what they like because the guards and officials don't intervene."

"I don't care."

"You should. There'd be nothing to stop them from beating you or raping you or taking your food until you starve."

"And how do I know River isn't hurting just that badly?" Simon demanded. "Since I learned what they were doing to her, I haven't slept through the night. I have to make myself eat. Patients complain to me about pain and all I can think is that River's is worse. I see Alliance patrols and I just want to scream that their goodness is a lie, a trick. So why not be in prison? It couldn't be worse."

Mahdavi shook her head. "Yes, it could. You may be sane in a crazy 'verse, Simon, but the crazy 'verse is still the one you have to live in. I'll help you as much as I can, but you're still one man, and there's some things no one gets through whole. Just try not to learn about them first-hand."

**OoOoO**

Simon did his best to ignore the throbbing pain in his head, and tried to calm himself through regulated breathing—a strategy which, according to all the most current Osiris medical journals, should have worked quite well. Apparently the test cases run by Osiris medical journals did not include knocking out their subjects, tying them to chairs in pitch-black rooms for hours, and disregarding their initial terrified screaming.

Alright, so maybe this wouldn't work. Simon cursed himself for remaining at the meeting point for twenty minutes after Geming hadn't shown up when he should. Obviously there had been a reason the man had neglected to come. Whether it was because he and his compatriots had decided Simon wasn't worth it and to turn him in, or whether they'd been betrayed themselves, his absence should have been an alert that something was wrong.

_They're hurting us. Get me out. They're hurting us..._

No. He couldn't think about River right now; it would only cloud his judgment. Fine. Name all the bones in the foot. Cuboid, lateral cuneiform, intermediate cuneiform, medial cuneiform, metatarsals, phalanges—and River would be trapped there in a living nightmare for years, waiting and waiting for him to come—

No. He had to keep his feelings under control. Alright, name his carving tools. Standard knives, detail knives, chip carving knives, chisels, gouges. When he found River, he'd carve her a doll, a pretty doll. Not a matryoshka, they required a lathe, but she loved drawing those, used to draw them, before—

A creak, a door swung open, and a light went on, so bright Simon had to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment. When he opened them, it was to see a short yellow-haired woman standing before his chair, while a tall, bony man stood by with a gun Simon doubted he himself could lift. Two doors, he saw, which would increase the opportunity for escape if he weren't outnumbered and tied up anyway.

"Hey," the woman said conversationally. "Nice to meet you, Dr. Tam. Or can I call you Simon?"

Simon swallowed, hating that his voice shook. "What's going on?"

"Fallen in with criminals so young." The woman sounded almost mournful. "It's a pity you went straight to the big leagues. Should've just snuck into a blackout zone, then you might've gotten off."

"Big leagues?" Simon watched her warily. How much did they know already? And who were they? This wasn't normal Fed behavior by any means.

"Geming and Sumner." The woman smirked. "Or didn't you know your friends are plotting rebellion?"

Rebellion? Simon blinked. Planning to rescue River might not be legal, but it surely wasn't full-scale rebellion. Of course, why would Geming and Sumner tell him everything they were up to? Sumner's words from the night they'd met came back to him. _It would build confidence in our ranks. That's been sorely lacking lately._

"Oh, well, maybe you didn't know. I'd wish you good luck convincing a jury of that, but I'm not at all sure you'll get to trial. It doesn't matter anyway." The woman pulled a knife from a sheath on one boot. "We just need to know how to find them. Do us all a favor and make it easy."

Simon stared at the knife, befuddled, wishing his head would stop throbbing so he could think. "Easy?"

"You've heard the word, I imagine. It means the opposite of difficult. In this case, difficult means a lot of torment for you and an extra hour cleaning the knife for me. Does that clear things up?"

Terror swamped Simon. _"__Ai ya. Tian a__."_

"Oh, don't go into hysterics. Just tell me how to find your rebels." The woman examined her knife with detached interest. "You'll break eventually, so you might as well save us both the trouble."

"I don't know where they stay! You think they trust me with everything?"

"You know where they meet, I expect. I'm pleased to know you're a doctor, by the way. Like me, you study the human body, though I expect our aims are different. You've seen what pain will do to other people; perhaps it will make you amenable."

Simon had seen it, alright. He'd seen patients pleading and howling until their throats tore out, seen them writhe until they had to be sedated. And he'd always assumed that after a certain point, a person would do anything to make the torment stop, no matter the long-term cost.

_Anything? Would I really do anything?_

"I'm waiting, Simon. Tell me where they meet."

_How do I know they aren't hurting River even more than this woman will hurt me?_

"Come on. No cost to you."

_But I'm not the only one who matters._

She would kill him, when she was done with him. She'd have to, even if she was Alliance. Torture wasn't legal, and he'd be evidence.

"You can save yourself so much pain this way."

_I'm going to die. That means..._

That meant the only people who knew River was in trouble and could help her were Geming, Sumner, and their allies. Which meant if he betrayed them, he'd betray his _meimei_too. "I don't know how to find them."

"Alright, fine." Before Simon could think, the knife slashed deep into his leg—and he'd never known agony like that, his whole body screaming. "Hard way. Where are they?"

"I...can't...find them."

The woman shrugged, rotated the knife in her hand, and buried it nearly hilt-deep in his thigh—he couldn't think now, there was pain beyond thought and hot blood everywhere when she yanked the blade free. "We can stay here all night. I'm patient."

Simon realized through a haze of adrenaline that if he opened his mouth, he'd spill what he knew. He gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut. He'd bite his own tongue off if that was what it took. _River..._

Then there was a thump and a shot. Simon's eyes flew open to see a strange man standing in one doorway, and the guard on the floor with a bullet between his eyes. The woman whirled around, dropping the knife and going for the gun at her waist, but before she could raise it, Csizmadia stepped through the other door and twisted it straight out of her hand. The next second, she'd kicked the woman down to her knees and slammed the weapon against the back of her head, knocking her out.

The strange man pulled out a knife of his own and began cutting the ropes that tied Simon. "What an amateur."

Csizmadia snorted. "Catch me interrogating anyone in a room with two doors. And only elementary psychological methods. You stay calm, Dr. Tam, and we'll get you to a medic."

Simon, recovering from his shock long enough to remember his doctor's training, stripped off his vest and held it to his thigh. "I'm sorry—I—"

"Not your fault," Csizmadia said briskly, nodding to the strange man. "Douglas, give him the gun for a minute."

"Give _him _the gun?" Douglas looked incredulous. "What—"

"We have to get rid of her." Csizmadia gestured to the woman on the floor. "Better he learns how to kill now than when he's got someone conscious and begging for their life."

Simon stared, horrified, momentarily distracted from his own injuries. "You're telling me to shoot her? When she can't fight back?"

"Yes. Exactly."

"No. I can't." Simon shrank back from the weapon that Douglas was now holding out to him. "I don't even know how to use a gun."

"Point taken." Csizmadia picked up the torturer's knife and slapped in into his hands. "Use this. Carotid artery. You're a doctor, you know where it is. We haven't got all night."

"I don't kill people!"

"Learn to. Someday it'll be you between your sister and some bounty hunter or Fed who wants to take her away, so get this lesson under your belt now."

_River._

"Don't think about it," Douglas advised. "Just do it."

_Carotid artery._

It was only the feel of the hot blood on his fingers, wrists, palms, that made Simon realize what he'd done. The shock, coupled with the pain from his own lacerations, dazed him so far that he barely remembered stumbling out of the room.

**OoOoO**

"How did you know?" Simon craned his neck to look at Csizmadia, his voice hoarse. The medic now stitching up his leg had given him a local anesthetic, but that couldn't completely erase the pain.

"How did I know what?"

"You said that the woman I—the bounty hunter—only used elementary psychological methods. How did you know? You weren't there."

"Not in the room." Csizmadia set aside the hacking rig on which she'd been tapping. "But Douglas and I were listening in."

A sick feeling of betrayal broke over Simon. "What? For how long?"

"Since a little while before that woman and her guard came in."

"You heard me screaming and you just—and then you let her _torture_ me—"

Csizmadia leaned her elbows on her knees. "She wasn't going to do permanent damage for awhile yet. I know their kind. They consider themselves gorram artists, even if they're relatively clumsy."

The medic finished the last stitch. "We're just about done. You should heal fairly well, so long as you don't overexert—"

Simon waved him off. "I understand, I'm a doctor too." He turned back to Csizmadia. "Why would you take that risk at all?"

"Because I wanted you to learn to handle that kind of pain. It won't be the last time this happens to you. Even if you gave up on your sister now, you'd always be in danger from having associated with us. And I don't think you're going to give up."

"You let her cut into me with a knife!" Simon tried to rein himself in, knowing that offending her could jeopardize River's chances. "That's—"

"We all go through it," Csizmadia cut him off. "Even if we're lucky enough never to get tortured by an enemy, our organization puts every one of us in a nerve stimulator until we're screaming, just so we learn there are worse things in the 'verse than pain."

"You _let_ someone do that to you?"

"Yes, and it was good, because it's happened for real. I have burn scars all over me, my husband's gone through electrocution, and did you ever really think about how Geming got all those scars on his face? The Alliance isn't precisely gentle with those it doesn't like, not when no one's watching."

The medic came back with bandages. Simon closed his eyes for a moment, trying to steady himself, quench the terror. _Oh, River. I could never do this for myself. Or anyone but you. _"The bounty hunter said you were plotting rebellion. And you said something about your organization."

Csizmadia nodded. "I suppose you have a right to know a little, and you'd learn some of it eventually anyway. We're part of an underground movement called TALENT. Stands for The Alliance Liberation: End the Network of Tyranny."

Simon took a breath, trying to wrap his mind around that. "How big is your movement—TALENT? What is it you do?"

"We have what you might call branches in most systems. And we very rarely speak of our projects specifically. The more people who know, the more we risk." Csizmadia pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "In general, it tends to be breakouts, sabotage, organizing work stoppage. Classic resistance acts."

Resistance acts. Simon's parents, his friends, his colleagues, would call that treachery. They'd call the breakouts barbaric, the sabotage terrorism, and the work stoppage grievous irresponsibility. Frankly, Simon had spent most of his life believing the same. But playing with the brain of a seventeen-year-old girl was barbaric. Alliance-sanctioned torture could be called terrorism too. And Simon was beginning to think that to have accepted his government at face value his whole life had been grievous irresponsibility.

_I don't know what's right anymore._

**OoOoO**

"You've barely talked for days." Simon jerked at the sound of Mahdavi's voice, turning to see her standing beside his chair, hands on hips. "Not to mention you've been neglecting to eat and haven't touched your carvings. What's going on?"

"Nothing."

Mahdavi shifted a stack of epidemiology textbooks and seated herself on the sofa across from him. _"__Fei hua__. _Could be it's just that you got stabbed, but I'm betting not."

Simon stared at his feet. "I—had to do something. That I wish I hadn't had to do."

"You killed someone, didn't you?"

"How the—how did you know?"

"Educated guess." Mahdavi leaned back. "I knew you'd probably have to eventually. If someone was cutting on me, I'd kill them. And you've been acting pretty haunted, this past little while."

"I didn't want to." Simon bit the inside of his mouth. "What kind of a doctor am I, now? I cut an artery! I took a human life! And I can't even allow myself to grieve about it, because then maybe I wouldn't be able to kill again, and—and I'll probably have to." The words made him feel ill.

"I don't have answers for you." Mahdavi watched him, eyes level. "I guess it just comes down to this—what do you care about more, the life and morality you have now, or your sister?"

Simon thought of River at five, doing calculus under the covers with a flashlight far past midnight. He thought of River at seven, luring crows to her window with her rhinestone hairpins. He thought of River at ten, designing the ideal language, with 'to love' being the only irregular verb. He thought of River at fourteen, telling him an Earth-That-Was legend about a woman who loved the stars so much she left her home to become one of them.

"There are two things I'd fight to the death for. My sister and my home." He paused. "In that order."

**To be continued. Reviews are helpful and encouraging.**


	17. Jayne - Disaster

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Translations: **Are below.

Bizui - Shut up

Gui - Hell

Ta ma de - Damn it

Fang-zong feng-kuang de jie - A knot of self-indulgent lunacy

**Chapter 17: Jayne — Disaster**

**April 2517, En Route To Persephone**

Jayne Cobb, king of the sniper rifle and known for his potency and prowess on every planet where he hit dirtside, preferred guns to people when all was said and done. A man could count on his weapon to be fair consistent, day in and day out, 'less he was careless and didn't repair her right. And one thing Jayne weren't was careless with his guns.

People weren't anywhere near that reliable, even those as were tolerable 'cause they paid him or knew some good whore's tricks. Take Mal for an example—of the paying category, that is. (In Jayne's humble opinion, Mal's knowing good whore's tricks would be a gorram waste anyway, when it was clear as shiny Core glass the man hadn't gotten sexed in _years, _at least). Sure, Mal delivered when it came to coin, but his mind had all kinds of weird twists and turns. Right now he was in a bear of a mood, due to the reward from the Companion House being weak tea and them running three days late to Persephone, and there weren't any definite way to make him cut it out.

"Can't ya help me get him laid?" Jayne demanded of Zoe as he dried the dinner dishes. He'd have tried to skive off if it had been anyone but the first mate, and he suspected that was why Kaylee had stuck them together on cleanup duty. "We hand the goods over to this Susanna Muhangi, there'll be coin to hire—"

Zoe pushed a just-rinsed plate into his hands. "Ain't going to happen, and if you try and push it, Captain will be even more bent out of shape, so leave it alone. Job stress gets to us all. Things will blow over soon."

"Yeah, well, he ain't got no call to take it out on us," Jayne grumbled. "Ain't like we've got naught to worry about our own selves. Ella needs a new firin' pin, and Masha could use some spare cartridges."

"Jayne, why ya always name your guns?" Kaylee was leaning in the doorway, face liberally smudged with grease. "I think it's real nice, but why ya do it?"

"Picked up the habit from an old sharpshooter back home." Jayne shrugged. "He said ya can't neglect somethin' you named, all personal-like. And if ya neglect your guns, you're liable to end up a lead-filled carcass."

"Same as if I didn't pay no mind to Serenity," Kaylee agreed.

Jayne grinned. "I heard how ya done come onboard this ship for the first time. Ya favor machines like that, ya might be able to figure how I feel about a good gun when—"

"Don't be finishing that sentence," Zoe advised, handing him the pot they'd used to cook today's version of protein glop. "I ain't wishful to hear. Key word in the phrase private lives is private."

Kaylee giggled. "'Cept when I got the spiel 'bout Wash havin' _real _steady hands, pilot and all. 'Course, I did ask."

"How'd this conversation get back to sex?" Zoe shook her head. "Right, Jayne's in the room."

"Just talkin' 'bout how we can get Mal to unwind a mite." Jayne stuck the pot in the cupboard. It weren't wiped all the way, but the thing could dry on the shelf. "Ya say no whorehouse, Zoe, are you volunteerin' to sex him up?"

"Marriage vows, you may have heard of 'em."

"Pretty words is still words. Ain't like Wash is holdin' a gun to your head."

Zoe raised an eyebrow as she passed him a bundle of wet chopsticks. "There's something to be said for keeping a promise, Jayne."

"Yeah." Kaylee sat in a kitchen chair, propping her feet on one of the rungs. "I mean, we're all crew. We ain't ought to go behind each other's backs."

"Sure, we're crew. Can't function 'less we're reliable, but no point in gettin' all mushy over it." Jayne dried the chopsticks. "It's coin as keeps us together, in the end, I reckon."

"Hmm." Zoe pulled the plug in the sink, letting the soapy water swirl down the drain. "Ain't much of a wonder you don't understand why the Captain's been growling at us, then."

"Don't give much of a damn about the why, just so long as it don't go on too much longer." Jayne hung the dishcloth on the hook. "Things go any further downhill than they've been goin' lately, somethin's gonna snap on this boat afore long."

**OoOoO**

"This is Susanna's Corsets and Lingerie! Can I interest you in our Angel's Breath satin slips? They're going at a discount."

Jayne swiveled 'round in the co-pilot's chair to see Mal staring at the wave screen like it were a viper ready to strike. Zoe, at the top of the steps to the bridge, raised her eyebrows. "Sir? If I may offer an opinion, that one cotton dress and sunbonnet of yours are enough."

Mal glared at her, then turned back to the young, yellow-haired woman on the wave screen. "Sorry, miss. Think I typed the wave code in wrong."

"Oh, of course. Not a problem. Have a lovely day." The young woman cut the connection, and Mal began re-entering the code.

"Had a thought." Jayne went back to putting gun oil on Masha. "Our ammo supplies are a mite low, and there's a right lot of bullets in them crates. Who'd notice if a few went missin'?"

"You'd best not even think of skimming off the cargo," Zoe warned. "Think folks won't take note of it, if they ain't getting their coin's worth from us? The minute we get a reputation as double-dealing, that's goodbye to any work as pays well."

"I ain't gonna make a habit of it," Jayne retorted. "But we're livin' near the edge anyhow, ain't we? Gotta grab whatever we can, while we can."

"And we do the fraud dance, we won't just live on the edge, we'll tip right over it." Zoe leaned on the rail. "Word of cheating travels faster than light in this 'verse. Don't pretend you don't know it."

"Only if ya get caught. Wouldn't be too hard to keep it quiet."

Wash climbed the stairs to join 'em. "Sure, Jayne. It's like Benjamin Franklin said. Three people can keep a secret—if two of them are dead."

Zoe grinned at him. "Who is this Benjamin Franklin? Sounds like a man after my own heart."

"Oh, some Earth-That-Was person." Wash considered a moment. "I think he discovered electricity."

"How'd he do that?" Jayne asked.

"Not sure. I always sort of assumed it was by rubbing cats backwards."

"This is Susanna's Corsets and Lingerie! Can I interest you in our new silk brocade corsets? They're all the rage on Osiris these days—oh, hello again, sir."

Wash snickered. "What are you up to now, Mal?"

_"__Bizui.__"_

"Would you like me to transfer you to a particular department?" the young woman said brightly. "Xiang is in today. She does the kind of custom work you might want."

Mal threw up his hands. "Do I _look _like the sort to buy a gorram corset?"

"We don't discriminate on the basis of gender, race, age, nationality, religion, or sexual orientation. It's in the company policy. But if you don't want a corset, our fishnet stockings are—"

"No. No stockings. Must've typed the code wrong again. Sorry." Mal jabbed the screen, cutting the connection, and went to try again.

"Hear tell it's nectarine season on Persephone," Zoe remarked. "Mayhap, we get our due for this job, we'll pick up some. Sure could use fresh fruit, myself."

"Decent notion," Jayne agreed. "Though I gotta say, there's somethin' to be said for goin' to the Good Dogs stand too. A bit of meat, that ain't to be scorned at."

Zoe snorted. "Could think of a lot better things to do with a dog than eat it."

"Some dogs, they're right useless, though. I knew one, back home, as wouldn't bark a warnin' unless ya hollered in his ear, and wouldn't chase a rabbit 'less ya kicked him."

"Yours?"

"Nah." Jayne rubbed the oily rag he'd been using along the barrel. "My uncle's."

"Did he eat him?" Wash righted his T-Rex, which had fallen over.

"Ya jokin'? Anybody laid a finger on that animal, he'd threaten to beat 'em bloody. That dog died of old age. It was uncle who ended bad. Up on the gallows for bein' a horse thief."

"This is Susanna's Corsets and Lingerie! Can I interest you in our lace nightgowns? They're imported from Londinium—are you sure you have the right code, sir?"

Frowning, Jayne set the gun oil aside and peered over to see the same young woman on the wave screen, now seeming mightily puzzled. "Mal, what the _gui_are ya doin'?"

"Trying to reach our contact, what do you think? Wanted to let her know we ain't run off with the goods just 'cause we're late."

"Who is it you want to speak with?" the young woman asked. "I can let you know if they work at this branch."

"I'm reckoning Jonathan Neng gave us the wrong wave code by accident." Zoe joined Mal by the screen. "You ain't got no one at your lingerie place as is like to order bullets, do you?"

"Did you say Jonathan Neng?" The young woman looked alarmed.

"She did at that." Jayne put Masha down and went to stand by the other two.

"He hired us to deliver some goods to a Susanna Muhangi," Mal explained. "Hope this isn't his idea of a bad joke. I want to talk to the real person afore we get to Persephone."

"I think—I think I'd better put you on hold a moment." The young woman's face vanished from the screen.

"Well, that's more than a mite odd." Mal tapped his fingers on the console. "Could be we shouldn't have taken this job..."

Wash furrowed his brow. "Isn't it a little early to start worrying?"

Zoe pushed her hands in her pockets. "Don't know about you, but I'm a good way along worrying road already. Had a bad feeling 'bout this deal from the start."

"Why didn't ya say somethin'?" Jayne demanded.

"I did."

The young woman's face reappeared on the screen. "She's on her way. She wants to talk with you."

Mal leaned forward. "Who?"

"Susanna Muhangi. She's—"

"Extremely irked." Another woman came into view, this one older, with dark brown skin and many tiny braids. "I'm Susanna. Jonathan Neng hired you to deliver goods to me?"

"Ammo. We wanted to tell—"

_"__Ta ma de!_Not again!"Susanna kicked at something outside the wave screen and it fell over with a clatter. "Jon needs to go throw himself out an airlock. If this isn't _fang-zong feng-kuang de jie__, _I don't know what is."

"What's going on?" Mal looked tense.

"Yeah," Wash added. "Might as well hear the worst. How much trouble are we in now?"

"A lot." Susanna pushed two of her braids out of her face. "Jonathan Neng is my ex-husband and he's out for payback. I threw him out for using my coin to start a business selling explosives on the black market. Anything he sends to me will be chock full of tracking beacons for smart bombs. There's no way in hell I'm taking them."

"There's no way in hell we're keepin' 'em!" Jayne retorted. "Ya think—"

"Quit kicking up a storm, Jayne," Mal told him. "We ain't landed on Persephone yet. We'll just throw them crates into the black, and Neng can waste all the smart bombs he wants."

"That'd work," Zoe said, looking at the console screen. "Except we were supposed to get to Persephone three days ago, which means Neng thinks Ms. Muhangi already has the crates. Seems he decided to send a bomb or two after those tracking beacons."

"How long do we have?" Mal demanded.

Jayne ran 'round, and saw. "My guess? Ten seconds."

**To be continued. Reviews are helpful and encouraging.**


	18. Book - Survivor

**Beta'd by KrisEleven. Many thanks!**

**Warning**

This chapter has mentions of suicide.

**Chapter 18: Book — Survivor**

**April 2517, Persephone**

War might well cease, Derrial Book often thought, if commanders knew the names of the people they'd ordered killed. To count deaths by number took the meaning from those deaths, but numbers were all Book had, now, to do penance with. So he invented names and ages and histories, trying to restore some measure of humanity to dead soldiers whose faces he would never see.

"You have a personal grudge against those weeds?" Book glanced up from where he was attacking dandelions with a trowel, to see his friend Shepherd Ali grinning down at him. "Looking mighty displeased with them."

"I suspect them of an assassination plot." Book chuckled despite himself. "I have eliminated so many of their brethren. They seek revenge."

"No doubt about it." Ali examined a nearby strawberry bush. "These are ready to pick. The tomatoes too. Say, what's this I hear about you leaving?"

"Brother Owen should learn that discretion is a habit worth cultivating for a Shepherd."

"Come on, Book. You can't go. Bible study is dull as shipside protein without you. Father Victor always skips the best parts."

"By which I suppose you mean anything that doesn't fit with his vision of God?" Book suppressed an eye roll. It wouldn't do to mock his compatriots too much, even if Father Victor had an unhealthy appetite for those sections of the Bible that prompted revenge on the unfaithful. It was probably a good thing his teaching methods were boring. Otherwise he might actually convince someone.

"He'd rather read all the sacrifice bits in Leviticus than look too closely at Mark or Matthew," Ali complained. "It's alarming the novices."

Book shook his head. "If I had a credit for every time Leviticus instructs us to sprinkle blood on the altar, I could pay for those roof repairs Father Nianzu wants so badly. Still, the novices should read them."

"Why start them off with that?"

"It's part of history." Book used his trowel to remove a particularly stubborn weed. "What right do we have to preach the Word if we don't know what the Word consists of? Besides, too many newcomers think faith makes them perfect. It takes more than just belief to be a good Shepherd."

"Is that why you're leaving?"

"What?"

Ali walked over to examine the tomatoes. "Are you leaving because you think you're not fulfilling your duty as a Shepherd?"

"I haven't made a definitive decision to leave yet."

"That doesn't answer my question, Book."

Book tossed the weed on a nearby pile of twigs he had pruned from a fruit tree earlier. "I'm not sure any answer I can give would satisfy you." Or any answer he _would _give. He'd prefer that his friends at the Abbey continue to think of him with some level of respect.

"Ah, Brother Ali." Father Nianzu appeared from around the corner, both eyebrows raised. "And what, pray, have you done with the bell ropes this time?"

"Something happened to the bell ropes?" Ali asked innocently. "What?"

"They are merely in such a tangle that it will take us hours to get them undone," Nianzu informed him. "And Brother Melchior spotted you and your brother leaving the bell tower with a ladder, so do not venture to deny your part in it."

"Right," Ali sighed, dropping his garden shears in the crate of tools. "Did anyone get a capture of Father Victor's face when he saw, at least?"

"If so, you hardly deserve to see it. Now, go assist the others in restoring them to order."

When Ali had vanished in the direction of the bell tower, Nianzu turned to Book. "I had heard from Brother Owen that you were considering leaving. I must confess, I'm somewhat surprised."

"Why? I've traveled between the worlds enough in my time. You know that."

"I'd been under the impression that those travels had given you a certain...distaste for the 'verse outside these walls."

"No. Not in the least." Book stowed his trowel in the crate and dusted off his hands. "The opposite. I care enough for the 'verse not to wish it exposed to the person I once was."

Nianzu peered at him. "You know that in Our Lord there is forgiveness for all things."

"True. But I'm unsure if forgiveness is what I want." In fact, the idea worried Book. At times he couldn't help but wonder if his guilt was all that kept him from going back to his old ways.

"So what has happened now, to make you consider leaving?"

"I can't help but think it's my responsibility to help those like me. I have more knowledge of the 'verse outside than many here." Fairly unique knowledge, as it happened, for a man in his situation. "I should use it for good."

Though Book half-expected Nianzu to point out that this had been as true a year ago as it was today, he did not. "If you do choose to leave, where might you go?"

"I'm inclined to travel to the border planets, but exactly where—well, I trust I'll know, when I find a place I'm needed." Book brushed earth off the knees of his trousers.

"Well, make sure and take your share of this garden, if you go. It's mostly thanks to you it's thrived so much, after all." Nianzu turned back towards the Abbey, then suddenly stopped. "Book..."

"Yes?"

"I don't know exactly what your life was before you came to us, but if your time here is some kind of penance, I do think it best that you leave. Our order hardly requires or encourages that."

"No, if you had believed in an angry God I would never have come here." Book pressed his lips together for a moment. "Penance isn't always something you choose. You can find yourself doing it even when you've tried over and over again to stop."

"I see." Nianzu looked about to add something else, but seemed to think better of it. "I should go make sure Ali and his brother aren't just preparing for another practical joke. Father Victor is really no match for them." He disappeared in the direction of the bell tower.

Book grabbed the crate of tools and went to the garden shed. He was in no way sure that either his motives for staying at the Abbey or leaving were completely pure. Then again, surety would be arrogance. He was fairly positive, all the same, that nothing he met outside would be nearly as frightening as his visions of faceless, nameless dead.

**OoOoO**

That night, Book's session of Bible study was interrupted by shouting from the front door of the Abbey. The novices were out of the library in a flash, leaving Book little choice but to follow and see what the fuss was. They weren't the only ones by any means. Several other brothers were gathered there, attempting to get a good look as Father Nianzu and Father Victor tried to make themselves heard over whoever was shouting outside.

"—can't just take her in, not when she's like this!" Father Victor was saying. "We don't have the medical facilities—"

"And nowhere that has the medical facilities will keep her—she's a settler without an ident card or a credit to her name!" shouted the someone outside the door. "Do you want her loose in a charity hospital? _Look _at her!"

Frowning, Book pushed his way to the front of the group. He recognized the shouting man now—a chaplain from the nearby St. John's Hospital. The people behind him were little more than indistinct figures in the dusk.

"I grant you, it seems like a bad idea," Father Nianzu said. "But why bring her here? An abbey isn't the most secure place either. Believe me, you want her loose on the street even less than you want her loose in a hospital."

"There are fewer scalpels in an abbey than a hospital," the chaplain retorted. "And she kept begging me to take her to a church. I figured if she felt close to God, she might get the rage under control. It's not unheard of."

"People don't recover from—from that kind of thing!" Father Victor protested. "Don't you know the stories?"

"We have to try. It's our duty as shepherds!" The chaplain stepped back outside the door, then emerged into the light a second later, pulling with him—

From behind him, Book heard everything from sharp intakes of breath to yells of shock at the sight. He didn't blame the novices. The woman the chaplain had steered inside was crisscrossed with deep slashes. Blood soaked her clothes and dripped onto the tiled abbey floor. Just as terrifying, if not more so, was the sight of her face—eyes rolling madly and mouth stretched in a breathless, hysterical laugh. The symptoms, to Book at least, were unmistakable.

_Reaver survivor. The one they wouldn't let look away._

"Forget hospital!" exclaimed someone in the crowd. "She belongs in a cell. She'll kill us all!"

"She's only cut on herself, not anyone else," argued the chaplain. "And she let us have the scalpel back when we promised we'd take her to a church. We can't just—"

The woman shot down the hall, moving so fast she'd dodged around Book before he had a chance to grab her. Most of the novices and shepherds behind him dove out of her way, thoroughly unnerved. Any who might have tried to stop her were knocked aside by those attempting to flee. Book did his best to follow, but his fellows did not immediately jump aside for him as they had for the woman, and as such she had nearly vanished by the time he fought his way out of the crowd.

He ran after the survivor, but she had too good of a head start for him to do more than keep her in sight. The two of them hurtled around several corners and darted up and down stairs. Twice Book lost his quarry, but as she didn't seem to be very worried about keeping quiet, he managed to locate her again, though never in time to catch her. Finally, he saw the door to the chapel clatter shut behind her, and slowed. That room had no other way but this to get out.

_Now what?_

Book knew what he was supposed to do, what the people from his old life would say he had to do. For the sake of the whole abbey. For the greater good. Reaver survivors were dangerous. They became what they had seen. The only choice was to put a bullet through them before they could do further damage. And at one time, he wouldn't have hesitated.

That time was past.

If he killed this woman without hesitation, what kind of believer was he? How could he claim to have faith in God's ability to heal? Sometimes people were too far gone to be saved; only a fool would deny that. But in this case, there was still a chance.

If Book wanted to offer the survivor that chance, though, he'd have to have faith on his own account—faith enough to walk through that door, knowing there might be an attack waiting on the other side of it. Well, who would he choose to be? Shepherd Book, or the man who ignored the faceless, nameless dead?

God protect me, Book thought, and pushed open the door.

This chapel, unlike the formal sanctuary, held a motley collection of faith artifacts contributed by the various shepherds—everything from a priceless gold-leafed icon of a saint from the Earth-That-Was nation of Russia, to a rough wooden altar carved by one of the novice's grandfathers. There was even a large marble statue of the Madonna in a corner, and the Reaver survivor was huddled up against her, eyes closed.

Book took a breath. "Hello?"

The survivor's eyes opened, and they no longer had quite the same mad look. "They want, they want me to—kill everyone—make me their toy, their tool. Won't—do it."

"You don't have to. Healing is—"

"No. Rage, it's coming. I have to go, before—before it comes."

"What do you mean?" Book moved cautiously forward. "Go where?"

"Away from here. Pray—for me. Give me the journey prayer."

"I'm glad to." Book knelt down several feet from the survivor, who closed her eyes again. He cleared his throat. "Dear God, your servants ask you to bless this woman as she begins her journey. No matter what road she must walk, we pray that you will remain by her side and give her strength. We pray that she may be a blessing to all she meets. And we pray that wherever her journey ends, that place will be home. Amen."

The woman did not respond, nor did she move. Book waited long minutes, then steeled himself, reached out, and touched her arm. He half-expected to have her teeth at his throat, but she did not react at all and her skin felt unnaturally cold. Shocked, Book shook her shoulder, only to find she had gone stiff.

She was dead. _Rage, it's coming, _she'd said. _I have to go before it comes. _

Determined to be sure, Book reached to check her pulse, and an empty syringe clattered out of her hand to the floor. There could be no knowing for sure, but Book had a good guess as to what must have happened. She'd stolen it and filled it with some toxic substance—an act that just might have gone unnoticed in a hospital as crowded and understaffed as St. John's. And in the few moments in the chapel before he'd entered, she'd given herself the injection.

She had come to this abbey to die, and kept herself from harming anyone until she got here. Her belief had undercut the Reavers' plan to pass on their bloodlust. If faith could have that kind of power, surely it could keep his past from tainting his future. And perhaps the knowledge he could bring might help others the same way.

The next day, Book went to Father Nianzu and told him he would soon be leaving.

**Author's Note**

Book's reaction in _Bushwhacked _to the Reaver survivor in the wreck always made me think he might very well have encountered something similar before, but with a different outcome. This is one possible take. Most toxic substances would probably not work that fast, but I figured the woman in this chapter was probably near the breaking point physically as well as emotionally, and so was vulnerable to any sort of system shock.


End file.
